1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 10
8 * There are new feature names for ARC targets: "org.gnu.gdb.arc.core"
9 and "org.gnu.gdb.arc.aux". The old names are still supported but
10 must be considered obsolete. They will be deprecated after some
13 * Help and apropos commands will now show the documentation of a
14 command only once, even if that command has one or more aliases.
15 These commands now show the command name, then all of its aliases,
16 and finally the description of the command.
18 * 'help aliases' now shows only the user defined aliases. GDB predefined
19 aliases are shown together with their aliased command.
21 * GDB now supports debuginfod, an HTTP server for distributing ELF/DWARF
22 debugging information as well as source code.
24 When built with debuginfod, GDB can automatically query debuginfod
25 servers for the separate debug files and source code of the executable
28 To build GDB with debuginfod, pass --with-debuginfod to configure (this
29 requires libdebuginfod, the debuginfod client library).
31 debuginfod is distributed with elfutils, starting with version 0.178.
33 You can get the latest version from https://sourceware.org/elfutils.
35 * Multi-target debugging support
37 GDB now supports debugging multiple target connections
38 simultaneously. For example, you can now have each inferior
39 connected to different remote servers running in different machines,
40 or have one inferior debugging a local native process, an inferior
41 debugging a core dump, etc.
43 This support is experimental and comes with some limitations -- you
44 can only resume multiple targets simultaneously if all targets
45 support non-stop mode, and all remote stubs or servers must support
46 the same set of remote protocol features exactly. See also "info
47 connections" and "add-inferior -no-connection" below, and "maint set
48 target-non-stop" in the user manual.
50 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
52 ** GDBserver is now supported on RISC-V GNU/Linux.
54 ** GDBserver no longer supports these host triplets:
65 i[34567]86-*-mingw32ce*
67 * Debugging MS-Windows processes now sets $_exitsignal when the
68 inferior is terminated by a signal, instead of setting $_exitcode.
70 * Multithreaded symbol loading has now been enabled by default on systems
71 that support it (see entry for GDB 9, below), providing faster
72 performance for programs with many symbols.
74 * The $_siginfo convenience variable now also works on Windows targets,
75 and will display the EXCEPTION_RECORD of the last handled exception.
77 * TUI windows can now be arranged horizontally.
79 * The command history filename can now be set to the empty string
80 either using 'set history filename' or by setting 'GDBHISTFILE=' in
81 the environment. The effect of setting this filename to the empty
82 string is that GDB will not try to load any previous command
85 * On Windows targets, it is now possible to debug 32-bit programs with a
90 set exec-file-mismatch -- Set exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
91 show exec-file-mismatch -- Show exec-file-mismatch handling (ask|warn|off).
92 Set or show the option 'exec-file-mismatch'. When GDB attaches to a
93 running process, this new option indicates whether to detect
94 a mismatch between the current executable file loaded by GDB and the
95 executable file used to start the process. If 'ask', the default,
96 display a warning and ask the user whether to load the process
97 executable file; if 'warn', just display a warning; if 'off', don't
98 attempt to detect a mismatch.
100 tui new-layout NAME WINDOW WEIGHT [WINDOW WEIGHT]...
101 Define a new TUI layout, specifying its name and the windows that
104 maintenance print xml-tdesc [FILE]
105 Prints the current target description as an XML document. If the
106 optional FILE is provided (which is an XML target description) then
107 the target description is read from FILE into GDB, and then
110 maintenance print core-file-backed-mappings
111 Prints file-backed mappings loaded from a core file's note section.
112 Output is expected to be similar to that of "info proc mappings".
116 alias [-a] [--] ALIAS = COMMAND [DEFAULT-ARGS...]
117 The alias command can now specify default args for an alias.
118 GDB automatically prepends the alias default args to the argument list
119 provided explicitly by the user.
120 For example, to have a backtrace with full details, you can define
122 'alias bt_ALL = backtrace -entry-values both -frame-arg all
123 -past-main -past-entry -full'.
124 Alias default arguments can also use a set of nested 'with' commands,
125 e.g. 'alias pp10 = with print pretty -- with print elem 10 -- print'
126 defines the alias pp10 that will pretty print a maximum of 10 elements
127 of the given expression (if the expression is an array).
131 GNU/Linux/RISC-V (gdbserver) riscv*-*-linux*
136 ** gdb.register_window_type can be used to implement new TUI windows
139 ** Dynamic types can now be queried. gdb.Type has a new attribute,
140 "dynamic", and gdb.Type.sizeof can be None for a dynamic type. A
141 field of a dynamic type may have None for its "bitpos" attribute
144 ** Commands written in Python can be in the "TUI" help class by
145 registering with the new constant gdb.COMMAND_TUI.
147 ** New method gdb.PendingFrame.architecture () to retrieve the
148 architecture of the pending frame.
150 ** New gdb.Architecture.registers method that returns a
151 gdb.RegisterDescriptorIterator object, an iterator that returns
152 gdb.RegisterDescriptor objects. The new RegisterDescriptor is a
153 way to query the registers available for an architecture.
155 ** New gdb.Architecture.register_groups method that returns a
156 gdb.RegisterGroupIterator object, an iterator that returns
157 gdb.RegisterGroup objects. The new RegisterGroup is a way to
158 discover the available register groups.
162 ** GDB can now be built with GNU Guile 3.0 and 2.2 in addition to 2.0.
164 ** Procedures 'memory-port-read-buffer-size',
165 'set-memory-port-read-buffer-size!', 'memory-port-write-buffer-size',
166 and 'set-memory-port-write-buffer-size!' are deprecated. When
167 using Guile 2.2 and later, users who need to control the size of
168 a memory port's internal buffer can use the 'setvbuf' procedure.
172 * 'thread-exited' event is now available in the annotations interface.
174 * New built-in convenience variables $_gdb_major and $_gdb_minor
175 provide the GDB version. They are handy for conditionally using
176 features available only in or since specific GDB versions, in
177 scripts that should work error-free with many different versions,
178 such as in system-wide init files.
180 * New built-in convenience functions $_gdb_setting, $_gdb_setting_str,
181 $_gdb_maint_setting and $_gdb_maint_setting_str provide access to values
182 of the GDB settings and the GDB maintenance settings. They are handy
183 for changing the logic of user defined commands depending on the
184 current GDB settings.
186 * GDB now supports Thread Local Storage (TLS) variables on several
187 FreeBSD architectures (amd64, i386, powerpc, riscv). Other
188 architectures require kernel changes. TLS is not yet supported for
189 amd64 and i386 process core dumps.
191 * Support for Pointer Authentication (PAC) on AArch64 Linux. Return
192 addresses that required unmasking are shown in the backtrace with the
195 * Two new convenience functions $_cimag and $_creal that extract the
196 imaginary and real parts respectively from complex numbers.
198 * New built-in convenience variables $_shell_exitcode and $_shell_exitsignal
199 provide the exitcode or exit status of the shell commands launched by
200 GDB commands such as "shell", "pipe" and "make".
202 * The command define-prefix can now define user defined prefix commands.
203 User defined commands can now be defined using these user defined prefix
206 * Command names can now use the . character.
208 * The RX port now supports XML target descriptions.
210 * GDB now shows the Ada task names at more places, e.g. in task switching
213 * GDB can now be compiled with Python 3 on Windows.
215 * New convenience variable $_ada_exception holds the address of the
216 Ada exception being thrown. This is set by Ada-related catchpoints.
218 * GDB can now place breakpoints on nested functions and subroutines in
219 Fortran code. The '::' operator can be used between parent and
220 child scopes when placing breakpoints, for example:
222 (gdb) break outer_function::inner_function
224 The 'outer_function::' prefix is only needed if 'inner_function' is
225 not visible in the current scope.
227 * In addition to the system-wide gdbinit file, if configured with
228 --with-system-gdbinit-dir, GDB will now also load files in that directory
229 as system gdbinit files, unless the -nx or -n flag is provided. Files
230 with extensions .gdb, .py and .scm are supported as long as GDB was
231 compiled with support for that language.
233 * GDB now supports multithreaded symbol loading for higher performance.
234 This feature is still in testing, so it is disabled by default. You
235 can turn it on using 'maint set worker-threads unlimited'.
239 ** The gdb.Value type has a new method 'format_string' which returns a
240 string representing the value. The formatting is controlled by the
241 optional keyword arguments: 'raw', 'pretty_arrays', 'pretty_structs',
242 'array_indexes', 'symbols', 'unions', 'deref_refs', 'actual_objects',
243 'static_members', 'max_elements', 'repeat_threshold', and 'format'.
245 ** gdb.Type has a new property 'objfile' which returns the objfile the
248 ** The frame information printed by the python frame filtering code
249 is now consistent with what the 'backtrace' command prints when
250 there are no filters, or when the 'backtrace' '-no-filters' option
253 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbol can be used to look up
254 symbols with static linkage.
256 ** The new function gdb.lookup_static_symbols can be used to look up
257 all static symbols with static linkage.
259 ** gdb.Objfile has new methods 'lookup_global_symbol' and
260 'lookup_static_symbol' to lookup a symbol from this objfile only.
262 ** gdb.Block now supports the dictionary syntax for accessing symbols in
263 this block (e.g. block['local_variable']).
267 | [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
268 | -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
269 pipe [COMMAND] | SHELL_COMMAND
270 pipe -d DELIM COMMAND DELIM SHELL_COMMAND
271 Executes COMMAND and sends its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
272 With no COMMAND, repeat the last executed command
273 and send its output to SHELL_COMMAND.
275 define-prefix COMMAND
276 Define or mark a command as a user-defined prefix command.
278 with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
279 w SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
280 Temporarily set SETTING, run COMMAND, and restore SETTING.
281 Usage: with SETTING -- COMMAND
282 With no COMMAND, repeats the last executed command.
283 SETTING is any GDB setting you can change with the "set"
284 subcommands. For example, 'with language c -- print someobj'
285 temporarily switches to the C language in order to print someobj.
286 Settings can be combined: 'w lang c -- w print elements unlimited --
287 usercmd' switches to the C language and runs usercmd with no limit
288 of array elements to print.
290 maint with SETTING [VALUE] [-- COMMAND]
291 Like "with", but works with "maintenance set" settings.
293 set may-call-functions [on|off]
294 show may-call-functions
295 This controls whether GDB will attempt to call functions in
296 the program, such as with expressions in the print command. It
297 defaults to on. Calling functions in the program being debugged
298 can have undesired side effects. It is now possible to forbid
299 such function calls. If function calls are forbidden, GDB will throw
300 an error when a command (such as print expression) calls a function
303 set print finish [on|off]
305 This controls whether the `finish' command will display the value
306 that is returned by the current function. When `off', the value is
307 still entered into the value history, but it is not printed. The
312 Allows deeply nested structures to be simplified when printing by
313 replacing deeply nested parts (beyond the max-depth) with ellipses.
314 The default max-depth is 20, but this can be set to unlimited to get
315 the old behavior back.
317 set print raw-values [on|off]
318 show print raw-values
319 By default, GDB applies the enabled pretty printers when printing a
320 value. This allows to ignore the enabled pretty printers for a series
321 of commands. The default is 'off'.
323 set logging debugredirect [on|off]
324 By default, GDB debug output will go to both the terminal and the logfile.
325 Set if you want debug output to go only to the log file.
327 set style title foreground COLOR
328 set style title background COLOR
329 set style title intensity VALUE
330 Control the styling of titles.
332 set style highlight foreground COLOR
333 set style highlight background COLOR
334 set style highlight intensity VALUE
335 Control the styling of highlightings.
337 maint set worker-threads
338 maint show worker-threads
339 Control the number of worker threads that can be used by GDB. The
340 default is 0. "unlimited" lets GDB choose a number that is
341 reasonable. Currently worker threads are only used when demangling
342 the names of linker symbols.
344 set style tui-border foreground COLOR
345 set style tui-border background COLOR
346 Control the styling of TUI borders.
348 set style tui-active-border foreground COLOR
349 set style tui-active-border background COLOR
350 Control the styling of the active TUI border.
352 maint set test-settings KIND
353 maint show test-settings KIND
354 A set of commands used by the testsuite for exercising the settings
357 maint set tui-resize-message [on|off]
358 maint show tui-resize-message
359 Control whether GDB prints a message each time the terminal is
360 resized when in TUI mode. This is primarily useful for testing the
363 set print frame-info [short-location|location|location-and-address
364 |source-and-location|source-line|auto]
365 show print frame-info
366 This controls what frame information is printed by the commands printing
367 a frame. This setting will e.g. influence the behaviour of 'backtrace',
368 'frame', 'stepi'. The python frame filtering also respect this setting.
369 The 'backtrace' '-frame-info' option can override this global setting.
371 set tui compact-source
372 show tui compact-source
374 Enable the "compact" display mode for the TUI source window. The
375 compact display uses only as much space as is needed for the line
376 numbers in the current file, and only a single space to separate the
377 line numbers from the source.
379 info modules [-q] [REGEXP]
380 Return a list of Fortran modules matching REGEXP, or all modules if
383 info module functions [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
384 Return a list of functions within all modules, grouped by module.
385 The list of functions can be restricted with the optional regular
386 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
387 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the function type signature, and REGEXP
388 matches against the function name.
390 info module variables [-q] [-m MODULE_REGEXP] [-t TYPE_REGEXP] [REGEXP]
391 Return a list of variables within all modules, grouped by module.
392 The list of variables can be restricted with the optional regular
393 expressions. MODULE_REGEXP matches against the module name,
394 TYPE_REGEXP matches against the variable type, and REGEXP matches
395 against the variable name.
397 set debug remote-packet-max-chars
398 show debug remote-packet-max-chars
399 Controls the number of characters to output in a remote packet when using
401 The default is 512 bytes.
404 Lists the target connections currently in use.
409 The "help" command uses the title style to enhance the
410 readibility of its output by styling the classes and
414 Similarly to "help", the "apropos" command also uses the
415 title style for the command names. "apropos" accepts now
416 a flag "-v" (verbose) to show the full documentation
417 of matching commands and to use the highlight style to mark
418 the documentation parts matching REGEXP.
422 The GDB printf and eval commands can now print C-style and Ada-style
423 string convenience variables without calling functions in the program.
424 This allows to do formatted printing of strings without having
425 a running inferior, or when debugging a core dump.
427 info sources [-dirname | -basename] [--] [REGEXP]
428 This command has now optional arguments to only print the files
429 whose names match REGEXP. The arguments -dirname and -basename
430 allow to restrict matching respectively to the dirname and basename
434 The "show style" and its subcommands are now styling
435 a style name in their output using its own style, to help
436 the user visualize the different styles.
438 set print frame-arguments
439 The new value 'presence' indicates to only indicate the presence of
440 arguments using ..., instead of printing argument names and values.
442 set print raw-frame-arguments
443 show print raw-frame-arguments
445 These commands replace the similarly-named "set/show print raw
446 frame-arguments" commands (now with a dash instead of a space). The
447 old commands are now deprecated and may be removed in a future
450 add-inferior [-no-connection]
451 The add-inferior command now supports a "-no-connection" flag that
452 makes the new inferior start with no target connection associated.
453 By default, the new inferior inherits the target connection of the
454 current inferior. See also "info connections".
457 This command's output now includes a new "Connection" column
458 indicating which target connection an inferior is bound to. See
459 "info connections" above.
461 maint test-options require-delimiter
462 maint test-options unknown-is-error
463 maint test-options unknown-is-operand
464 maint show test-options-completion-result
465 Commands used by the testsuite to validate the command options
468 focus, winheight, +, -, >, <
469 These commands are now case-sensitive.
471 * New command options, command completion
473 GDB now has a standard infrastructure to support dash-style command
474 options ('-OPT'). One benefit is that commands that use it can
475 easily support completion of command line arguments. Try "CMD
476 -[TAB]" or "help CMD" to find options supported by a command. Over
477 time, we intend to migrate most commands to this infrastructure. A
478 number of commands got support for new command options in this
481 ** The "print" and "compile print" commands now support a number of
482 options that allow overriding relevant global print settings as
483 set by "set print" subcommands:
487 -array-indexes [on|off]
488 -elements NUMBER|unlimited
493 -repeats NUMBER|unlimited
494 -static-members [on|off]
499 Note that because the "print"/"compile print" commands accept
500 arbitrary expressions which may look like options (including
501 abbreviations), if you specify any command option, then you must
502 use a double dash ("--") to mark the end of argument processing.
504 ** The "backtrace" command now supports a number of options that
505 allow overriding relevant global print settings as set by "set
506 backtrace" and "set print" subcommands:
508 -entry-values no|only|preferred|if-needed|both|compact|default
509 -frame-arguments all|scalars|none
510 -raw-frame-arguments [on|off]
511 -frame-info auto|source-line|location|source-and-location
512 |location-and-address|short-location
516 In addition, the full/no-filters/hide qualifiers are now also
517 exposed as command options too:
523 ** The "frame apply", "tfaas" and "faas" commands similarly now
524 support the following options:
529 ** The new "info sources" options -dirname and -basename options
530 are using the standard '-OPT' infrastructure.
532 All options above can also be abbreviated. The argument of boolean
533 (on/off) options can be 0/1 too, and also the argument is assumed
534 "on" if omitted. This allows writing compact command invocations,
537 (gdb) p -ra -p -o 0 -- *myptr
539 The above is equivalent to:
541 (gdb) print -raw-values -pretty -object off -- *myptr
543 ** The "info types" command now supports the '-q' flag to disable
544 printing of some header information in a similar fashion to "info
545 variables" and "info functions".
547 ** The "info variables", "info functions", and "whereis" commands
548 now take a '-n' flag that excludes non-debug symbols (symbols
549 from the symbol table, not from the debug info such as DWARF)
552 * Completion improvements
554 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "thread apply all" and
555 "taas" commands, and their "-ascending" option can now be
558 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "info threads", "info
559 functions", "info variables", "info locals", and "info args"
562 ** GDB can now complete the options of the "compile file" and
563 "compile code" commands. The "compile file" command now
564 completes on filenames.
566 ** GDB can now complete the backtrace command's
567 "full/no-filters/hide" qualifiers.
569 * In settings, you can now abbreviate "unlimited".
571 E.g., "set print elements u" is now equivalent to "set print
577 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
578 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by MI
579 frontends in cases when separate CLI and MI channels cannot be used.
581 -catch-throw, -catch-rethrow, and -catch-catch
582 These can be used to catch C++ exceptions in a similar fashion to
583 the CLI commands 'catch throw', 'catch rethrow', and 'catch catch'.
585 -symbol-info-functions, -symbol-info-types, and -symbol-info-variables
586 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
587 functions', 'info types', and 'info variables' respectively.
589 -symbol-info-modules, this is the MI equivalent of the CLI 'info
592 -symbol-info-module-functions and -symbol-info-module-variables.
593 These commands are the MI equivalent of the CLI commands 'info
594 module functions' and 'info module variables'.
598 ** The default version of the MI interpreter is now 3 (-i=mi3).
600 ** The output of information about multi-location breakpoints (which is
601 syntactically incorrect in MI 2) has changed in MI 3. This affects
602 the following commands and events:
606 - =breakpoint-created
607 - =breakpoint-modified
609 The -fix-multi-location-breakpoint-output command can be used to enable
610 this behavior with previous MI versions.
612 ** Backtraces and frames include a new optional field addr_flags which is
613 given after the addr field. On AArch64 this contains PAC if the address
614 has been masked in the frame. On all other targets the field is not
619 The testsuite now creates the files gdb.cmd (containing the arguments
620 used to launch GDB) and gdb.in (containing all the commands sent to
621 GDB) in the output directory for each test script. Multiple invocations
622 are appended with .1, .2, .3 etc.
624 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.82.
626 Using another implementation of the make program or an earlier version of
627 GNU make to build GDB or GDBserver is not supported.
629 * Building GDB now requires GNU readline >= 7.0.
631 GDB now bundles GNU readline 8.0, but if you choose to use
632 --with-system-readline, only readline >= 7.0 can be used.
634 * The TUI SingleKey keymap is now named "SingleKey". This can be used
635 from .inputrc to bind keys in this keymap. This feature is only
636 available when gdb is built against GNU readline 8.0 or later.
638 * Removed targets and native configurations
640 GDB no longer supports debugging the Cell Broadband Engine. This includes
641 both debugging standalone Cell/B.E. SPU applications and integrated debugging
642 of Cell/B.E. applications that use both the PPU and SPU architectures.
648 * Removed targets and native configurations
650 Solaris 10 i?86-*-solaris2.10, x86_64-*-solaris2.10,
653 *** Changes in GDB 8.3
655 * GDB and GDBserver now support access to additional registers on
656 PowerPC GNU/Linux targets: PPR, DSCR, TAR, EBB/PMU registers, and
659 * GDB now has experimental support for the compilation and injection of
660 C++ source code into the inferior. This beta release does not include
661 support for several language features, such as templates, constructors,
664 This feature requires GCC 7.1 or higher built with libcp1.so
667 * GDB and GDBserver now support IPv6 connections. IPv6 addresses
668 can be passed using the '[ADDRESS]:PORT' notation, or the regular
669 'ADDRESS:PORT' method.
671 * DWARF index cache: GDB can now automatically save indices of DWARF
672 symbols on disk to speed up further loading of the same binaries.
674 * Ada task switching is now supported on aarch64-elf targets when
675 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
676 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
677 in the GDB user manual.
679 * GDB in batch mode now exits with status 1 if the last command to be
682 * The RISC-V target now supports target descriptions.
684 * System call catchpoints now support system call aliases on FreeBSD.
685 When the ABI of a system call changes in FreeBSD, this is
686 implemented by leaving a compatibility system call using the old ABI
687 at the existing number and allocating a new system call number for
688 the new ABI. For example, FreeBSD 12 altered the layout of 'struct
689 kevent' used by the 'kevent' system call. As a result, FreeBSD 12
690 kernels ship with both 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent' system calls.
691 The 'freebsd11_kevent' system call is assigned an alias of 'kevent'
692 so that a system call catchpoint for the 'kevent' system call will
693 catch invocations of both the 'kevent' and 'freebsd11_kevent'
694 binaries. This ensures that 'kevent' system calls are caught for
695 binaries using either the old or new ABIs.
697 * Terminal styling is now available for the CLI and the TUI. GNU
698 Source Highlight can additionally be used to provide styling of
699 source code snippets. See the "set style" commands, below, for more
702 * Removed support for old demangling styles arm, edg, gnu, hp and
707 set debug compile-cplus-types
708 show debug compile-cplus-types
709 Control the display of debug output about type conversion in the
710 C++ compile feature. Commands have no effect while compiling
715 Control whether debug output about files/functions skipping is
718 frame apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT | level LEVEL...] [FLAG]... COMMAND
719 Apply a command to some frames.
720 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
721 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a frame.
724 Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output).
725 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND'.
728 Apply a command to all frames (ignoring errors and empty output).
729 Shortcut for 'frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
732 Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty
734 Shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'.
736 maint set dwarf unwinders (on|off)
737 maint show dwarf unwinders
738 Control whether DWARF unwinders can be used.
741 Display a list of open files for a process.
745 Changes to the "frame", "select-frame", and "info frame" CLI commands.
746 These commands all now take a frame specification which
747 is either a frame level, or one of the keywords 'level', 'address',
748 'function', or 'view' followed by a parameter. Selecting a frame by
749 address, or viewing a frame outside the current backtrace now
750 requires the use of a keyword. Selecting a frame by level is
751 unchanged. The MI comment "-stack-select-frame" is unchanged.
753 target remote FILENAME
754 target extended-remote FILENAME
755 If FILENAME is a Unix domain socket, GDB will attempt to connect
756 to this socket instead of opening FILENAME as a character device.
758 info args [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
759 info functions [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
760 info locals [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
761 info variables [-q] [-t TYPEREGEXP] [NAMEREGEXP]
762 These commands can now print only the searched entities
763 matching the provided regexp(s), giving a condition
764 on the entity names or entity types. The flag -q disables
765 printing headers or informations messages.
771 These commands now determine the syntax for the shown entities
772 according to the language chosen by `set language'. In particular,
773 `set language auto' means to automatically choose the language of
776 thread apply [all | COUNT | -COUNT] [FLAG]... COMMAND
777 The 'thread apply' command accepts new FLAG arguments.
778 FLAG arguments allow to control what output to produce and how to handle
779 errors raised when applying COMMAND to a thread.
781 set tui tab-width NCHARS
782 show tui tab-width NCHARS
783 "set tui tab-width" replaces the "tabset" command, which has been deprecated.
785 set style enabled [on|off]
787 Enable or disable terminal styling. Styling is enabled by default
788 on most hosts, but disabled by default when in batch mode.
790 set style sources [on|off]
792 Enable or disable source code styling. Source code styling is
793 enabled by default, but only takes effect if styling in general is
794 enabled, and if GDB was linked with GNU Source Highlight.
796 set style filename foreground COLOR
797 set style filename background COLOR
798 set style filename intensity VALUE
799 Control the styling of file names.
801 set style function foreground COLOR
802 set style function background COLOR
803 set style function intensity VALUE
804 Control the styling of function names.
806 set style variable foreground COLOR
807 set style variable background COLOR
808 set style variable intensity VALUE
809 Control the styling of variable names.
811 set style address foreground COLOR
812 set style address background COLOR
813 set style address intensity VALUE
814 Control the styling of addresses.
818 ** The '-data-disassemble' MI command now accepts an '-a' option to
819 disassemble the whole function surrounding the given program
820 counter value or function name. Support for this feature can be
821 verified by using the "-list-features" command, which should
822 contain "data-disassemble-a-option".
824 ** Command responses and notifications that include a frame now include
825 the frame's architecture in a new "arch" attribute.
827 * New native configurations
829 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
830 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
834 GNU/Linux/RISC-V riscv*-*-linux*
836 CSKY GNU/LINUX csky*-*-linux
837 FreeBSD/riscv riscv*-*-freebsd*
839 GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*
843 GDB no longer supports native debugging on versions of MS-Windows
848 ** GDB no longer supports Python versions less than 2.6.
850 ** The gdb.Inferior type has a new 'progspace' property, which is the program
851 space associated to that inferior.
853 ** The gdb.Progspace type has a new 'objfiles' method, which returns the list
854 of objfiles associated to that program space.
856 ** gdb.SYMBOL_LOC_COMMON_BLOCK, gdb.SYMBOL_MODULE_DOMAIN, and
857 gdb.SYMBOL_COMMON_BLOCK_DOMAIN were added to reflect changes to
860 ** gdb.SYMBOL_VARIABLES_DOMAIN, gdb.SYMBOL_FUNCTIONS_DOMAIN, and
861 gdb.SYMBOL_TYPES_DOMAIN are now deprecated. These were never
862 correct and did not work properly.
864 ** The gdb.Value type has a new constructor, which is used to construct a
865 gdb.Value from a Python buffer object and a gdb.Type.
871 Enable or disable the undefined behavior sanitizer. This is
872 disabled by default, but passing --enable-ubsan=yes or
873 --enable-ubsan=auto to configure will enable it. Enabling this can
874 cause a performance penalty. The undefined behavior sanitizer was
875 first introduced in GCC 4.9.
877 *** Changes in GDB 8.2
879 * The 'set disassembler-options' command now supports specifying options
882 * The 'symbol-file' command now accepts an '-o' option to add a relative
883 offset to all sections.
885 * Similarly, the 'add-symbol-file' command also accepts an '-o' option to add
886 a relative offset to all sections, but it allows to override the load
887 address of individual sections using '-s'.
889 * The 'add-symbol-file' command no longer requires the second argument
890 (address of the text section).
892 * The endianness used with the 'set endian auto' mode in the absence of
893 an executable selected for debugging is now the last endianness chosen
894 either by one of the 'set endian big' and 'set endian little' commands
895 or by inferring from the last executable used, rather than the startup
898 * The pager now allows a "c" response, meaning to disable the pager
899 for the rest of the current command.
901 * The commands 'info variables/functions/types' now show the source line
902 numbers of symbol definitions when available.
904 * 'info proc' now works on running processes on FreeBSD systems and core
905 files created on FreeBSD systems.
907 * C expressions can now use _Alignof, and C++ expressions can now use
910 * Support for SVE on AArch64 Linux. Note that GDB does not detect changes to
911 the vector length while the process is running.
917 Control display of debugging info regarding the FreeBSD native target.
919 set|show varsize-limit
920 This new setting allows the user to control the maximum size of Ada
921 objects being printed when those objects have a variable type,
922 instead of that maximum size being hardcoded to 65536 bytes.
924 set|show record btrace cpu
925 Controls the processor to be used for enabling errata workarounds for
928 maint check libthread-db
929 Run integrity checks on the current inferior's thread debugging
932 maint set check-libthread-db (on|off)
933 maint show check-libthread-db
934 Control whether to run integrity checks on inferior specific thread
935 debugging libraries as they are loaded. The default is not to
940 ** Type alignment is now exposed via the "align" attribute of a gdb.Type.
942 ** The commands attached to a breakpoint can be set by assigning to
943 the breakpoint's "commands" field.
945 ** gdb.execute can now execute multi-line gdb commands.
947 ** The new functions gdb.convenience_variable and
948 gdb.set_convenience_variable can be used to get and set the value
949 of convenience variables.
951 ** A gdb.Parameter will no longer print the "set" help text on an
952 ordinary "set"; instead by default a "set" will be silent unless
953 the get_set_string method returns a non-empty string.
957 RiscV ELF riscv*-*-elf
959 * Removed targets and native configurations
961 m88k running OpenBSD m88*-*-openbsd*
962 SH-5/SH64 ELF sh64-*-elf*, SH-5/SH64 support in sh*
963 SH-5/SH64 running GNU/Linux SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-linux*
964 SH-5/SH64 running OpenBSD SH-5/SH64 support in sh*-*-openbsd*
966 * Aarch64/Linux hardware watchpoints improvements
968 Hardware watchpoints on unaligned addresses are now properly
969 supported when running Linux kernel 4.10 or higher: read and access
970 watchpoints are no longer spuriously missed, and all watchpoints
971 lengths between 1 and 8 bytes are supported. On older kernels,
972 watchpoints set on unaligned addresses are no longer missed, with
973 the tradeoff that there is a possibility of false hits being
978 --enable-codesign=CERT
979 This can be used to invoke "codesign -s CERT" after building gdb.
980 This option is useful on macOS, where code signing is required for
981 gdb to work properly.
983 --disable-gdbcli has been removed
984 This is now silently accepted, but does nothing.
986 *** Changes in GDB 8.1
988 * GDB now supports dynamically creating arbitrary register groups specified
989 in XML target descriptions. This allows for finer grain grouping of
990 registers on systems with a large amount of registers.
992 * The 'ptype' command now accepts a '/o' flag, which prints the
993 offsets and sizes of fields in a struct, like the pahole(1) tool.
995 * New "--readnever" command line option instructs GDB to not read each
996 symbol file's symbolic debug information. This makes startup faster
997 but at the expense of not being able to perform symbolic debugging.
998 This option is intended for use cases where symbolic debugging will
999 not be used, e.g., when you only need to dump the debuggee's core.
1001 * GDB now uses the GNU MPFR library, if available, to emulate target
1002 floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target
1003 uses different floating-point formats than the host. At least version
1004 3.1 of GNU MPFR is required.
1006 * GDB now supports access to the guarded-storage-control registers and the
1007 software-based guarded-storage broadcast control registers on IBM z14.
1009 * On Unix systems, GDB now supports transmitting environment variables
1010 that are to be set or unset to GDBserver. These variables will
1011 affect the environment to be passed to the remote inferior.
1013 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be transmitted to
1014 GDBserver, use the "set environment" command. Only user set
1015 environment variables are sent to GDBserver.
1017 To inform GDB of environment variables that are to be unset before
1018 the remote inferior is started by the GDBserver, use the "unset
1019 environment" command.
1021 * Completion improvements
1023 ** GDB can now complete function parameters in linespecs and
1024 explicit locations without quoting. When setting breakpoints,
1025 quoting around functions names to help with TAB-completion is
1026 generally no longer necessary. For example, this now completes
1029 (gdb) b function(in[TAB]
1030 (gdb) b function(int)
1032 Related, GDB is no longer confused with completing functions in
1033 C++ anonymous namespaces:
1036 (gdb) b (anonymous namespace)::[TAB][TAB]
1037 (anonymous namespace)::a_function()
1038 (anonymous namespace)::b_function()
1040 ** GDB now has much improved linespec and explicit locations TAB
1041 completion support, that better understands what you're
1042 completing and offers better suggestions. For example, GDB no
1043 longer offers data symbols as possible completions when you're
1044 setting a breakpoint.
1046 ** GDB now TAB-completes label symbol names.
1048 ** The "complete" command now mimics TAB completion accurately.
1050 * New command line options (gcore)
1053 Dump all memory mappings.
1055 * Breakpoints on C++ functions are now set on all scopes by default
1057 By default, breakpoints on functions/methods are now interpreted as
1058 specifying all functions with the given name ignoring missing
1059 leading scopes (namespaces and classes).
1061 For example, assuming a C++ program with symbols named:
1066 both commands "break func()" and "break B::func()" set a breakpoint
1069 You can use the new flag "-qualified" to override this. This makes
1070 GDB interpret the specified function name as a complete
1071 fully-qualified name instead. For example, using the same C++
1072 program, the "break -q B::func" command sets a breakpoint on
1073 "B::func", only. A parameter has been added to the Python
1074 gdb.Breakpoint constructor to achieve the same result when creating
1075 a breakpoint from Python.
1077 * Breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1079 GDB can now set breakpoints on functions marked with C++ ABI tags
1080 (e.g., [abi:cxx11]). See here for a description of ABI tags:
1081 https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2015/02/05/gcc5-and-the-c11-abi/
1083 Functions with a C++11 abi tag are demangled/displayed like this:
1085 function[abi:cxx11](int)
1088 You can now set a breakpoint on such functions simply as if they had
1091 (gdb) b function(int)
1093 Or if you need to disambiguate between tags, like:
1095 (gdb) b function[abi:other_tag](int)
1097 Tab completion was adjusted accordingly as well.
1101 ** New events gdb.new_inferior, gdb.inferior_deleted, and
1102 gdb.new_thread are emitted. See the manual for further
1103 description of these.
1105 ** A new function, "gdb.rbreak" has been added to the Python API.
1106 This function allows the setting of a large number of breakpoints
1107 via a regex pattern in Python. See the manual for further details.
1109 ** Python breakpoints can now accept explicit locations. See the
1110 manual for a further description of this feature.
1113 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1115 ** GDBserver is now able to start inferior processes with a
1116 specified initial working directory.
1118 The user can set the desired working directory to be used from
1119 GDB using the new "set cwd" command.
1121 ** New "--selftest" command line option runs some GDBserver self
1122 tests. These self tests are disabled in releases.
1124 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now does globbing expansion and variable
1125 substitution in inferior command line arguments.
1127 This is done by starting inferiors using a shell, like GDB does.
1128 See "set startup-with-shell" in the user manual for how to disable
1129 this from GDB when using "target extended-remote". When using
1130 "target remote", you can disable the startup with shell by using the
1131 new "--no-startup-with-shell" GDBserver command line option.
1133 ** On Unix systems, GDBserver now supports receiving environment
1134 variables that are to be set or unset from GDB. These variables
1135 will affect the environment to be passed to the inferior.
1137 * When catching an Ada exception raised with a message, GDB now prints
1138 the message in the catchpoint hit notification. In GDB/MI mode, that
1139 information is provided as an extra field named "exception-message"
1140 in the *stopped notification.
1142 * Trait objects can now be inspected When debugging Rust code. This
1143 requires compiler support which will appear in Rust 1.24.
1145 * New remote packets
1147 QEnvironmentHexEncoded
1148 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be passed to
1149 the inferior when starting it.
1152 Inform GDBserver of an environment variable that is to be unset
1153 before starting the remote inferior.
1156 Inform GDBserver that the environment should be reset (i.e.,
1157 user-set environment variables should be unset).
1160 Indicates whether the inferior must be started with a shell or not.
1163 Tell GDBserver that the inferior to be started should use a specific
1166 * The "maintenance print c-tdesc" command now takes an optional
1167 argument which is the file name of XML target description.
1169 * The "maintenance selftest" command now takes an optional argument to
1170 filter the tests to be run.
1172 * The "enable", and "disable" commands now accept a range of
1173 breakpoint locations, e.g. "enable 1.3-5".
1178 Set and show the current working directory for the inferior.
1180 set|show compile-gcc
1181 Set and show compilation command used for compiling and injecting code
1182 with the 'compile' commands.
1184 set debug separate-debug-file
1185 show debug separate-debug-file
1186 Control the display of debug output about separate debug file search.
1188 set dump-excluded-mappings
1189 show dump-excluded-mappings
1190 Control whether mappings marked with the VM_DONTDUMP flag should be
1191 dumped when generating a core file.
1193 maint info selftests
1194 List the registered selftests.
1197 Start the debugged program stopping at the first instruction.
1200 Control display of debugging messages related to OpenRISC targets.
1202 set|show print type nested-type-limit
1203 Set and show the limit of nesting level for nested types that the
1204 type printer will show.
1206 * TUI Single-Key mode now supports two new shortcut keys: `i' for stepi and
1209 * Safer/improved support for debugging with no debug info
1211 GDB no longer assumes functions with no debug information return
1214 This means that GDB now refuses to call such functions unless you
1215 tell it the function's type, by either casting the call to the
1216 declared return type, or by casting the function to a function
1217 pointer of the right type, and calling that:
1219 (gdb) p getenv ("PATH")
1220 'getenv' has unknown return type; cast the call to its declared return type
1221 (gdb) p (char *) getenv ("PATH")
1222 $1 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1223 (gdb) p ((char * (*) (const char *)) getenv) ("PATH")
1224 $2 = 0x7fffffffe "/usr/local/bin:/"...
1226 Similarly, GDB no longer assumes that global variables with no debug
1227 info have type 'int', and refuses to print the variable's value
1228 unless you tell it the variable's type:
1231 'var' has unknown type; cast it to its declared type
1235 * New native configurations
1237 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1238 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1242 FreeBSD/aarch64 aarch64*-*-freebsd*
1243 FreeBSD/arm arm*-*-freebsd*
1244 OpenRISC ELF or1k*-*-elf
1246 * Removed targets and native configurations
1248 Solaris 2.0-9 i?86-*-solaris2.[0-9], sparc*-*-solaris2.[0-9]
1250 *** Changes in GDB 8.0
1252 * GDB now supports access to the PKU register on GNU/Linux. The register is
1253 added by the Memory Protection Keys for Userspace feature which will be
1254 available in future Intel CPUs.
1256 * GDB now supports C++11 rvalue references.
1260 ** New functions to start, stop and access a running btrace recording.
1261 ** Rvalue references are now supported in gdb.Type.
1263 * GDB now supports recording and replaying rdrand and rdseed Intel 64
1266 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires a C++11 compiler.
1268 For example, GCC 4.8 or later.
1270 It is no longer possible to build GDB or GDBserver with a C
1271 compiler. The --disable-build-with-cxx configure option has been
1274 * Building GDB and GDBserver now requires GNU make >= 3.81.
1276 It is no longer supported to build GDB or GDBserver with another
1277 implementation of the make program or an earlier version of GNU make.
1279 * Native debugging on MS-Windows supports command-line redirection
1281 Command-line arguments used for starting programs on MS-Windows can
1282 now include redirection symbols supported by native Windows shells,
1283 such as '<', '>', '>>', '2>&1', etc. This affects GDB commands such
1284 as "run", "start", and "set args", as well as the corresponding MI
1287 * Support for thread names on MS-Windows.
1289 GDB now catches and handles the special exception that programs
1290 running on MS-Windows use to assign names to threads in the
1293 * Support for Java programs compiled with gcj has been removed.
1295 * User commands now accept an unlimited number of arguments.
1296 Previously, only up to 10 was accepted.
1298 * The "eval" command now expands user-defined command arguments.
1300 This makes it easier to process a variable number of arguments:
1305 eval "print $arg%d", $i
1310 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for sparc32 and sparc64.
1312 * GDB now supports DWARF version 5 (debug information format).
1313 Its .debug_names index is not yet supported.
1315 * New native configurations
1317 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1321 Synopsys ARC arc*-*-elf32
1322 FreeBSD/mips mips*-*-freebsd
1324 * Removed targets and native configurations
1326 Alpha running FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
1327 Alpha running GNU/kFreeBSD alpha*-*-kfreebsd*-gnu
1332 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target.
1334 maint print arc arc-instruction address
1335 Print internal disassembler information about instruction at a given address.
1339 set disassembler-options
1340 show disassembler-options
1341 Controls the passing of target specific information to the disassembler.
1342 If it is necessary to specify more than one disassembler option then
1343 multiple options can be placed together into a comma separated list.
1344 The default value is the empty string. Currently, the only supported
1345 targets are ARM, PowerPC and S/390.
1350 Erases all the flash memory regions reported by the target. This is
1351 equivalent to the CLI command flash-erase.
1353 -file-list-shared-libraries
1354 List the shared libraries in the program. This is
1355 equivalent to the CLI command "info shared".
1358 Catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are
1359 handled. This is equivalent to the CLI command "catch handlers".
1361 *** Changes in GDB 7.12
1363 * GDB and GDBserver now build with a C++ compiler by default.
1365 The --enable-build-with-cxx configure option is now enabled by
1366 default. One must now explicitly configure with
1367 --disable-build-with-cxx in order to build with a C compiler. This
1368 option will be removed in a future release.
1370 * GDBserver now supports recording btrace without maintaining an active
1373 * GDB now supports a negative repeat count in the 'x' command to examine
1374 memory backward from the given address. For example:
1377 #0 Func1 (n=42, p=0x40061c "hogehoge") at main.cpp:4
1378 #1 0x400580 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffffffe5c8) at main.cpp:8
1379 (gdb) x/-5i 0x0000000000400580
1380 0x40056a <main(int, char**)+8>: mov %edi,-0x4(%rbp)
1381 0x40056d <main(int, char**)+11>: mov %rsi,-0x10(%rbp)
1382 0x400571 <main(int, char**)+15>: mov $0x40061c,%esi
1383 0x400576 <main(int, char**)+20>: mov $0x2a,%edi
1384 0x40057b <main(int, char**)+25>:
1385 callq 0x400536 <Func1(int, char const*)>
1387 * Fortran: Support structures with fields of dynamic types and
1388 arrays of dynamic types.
1390 * The symbol dumping maintenance commands have new syntax.
1391 maint print symbols [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1392 maint print symbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1393 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-pc address] [--] [filename]
1394 maint print psymbols [-objfile objfile] [-source source] [--] [filename]
1395 maint print msymbols [-objfile objfile] [--] [filename]
1397 * GDB now supports multibit bitfields and enums in target register
1400 * New Python-based convenience function $_as_string(val), which returns
1401 the textual representation of a value. This function is especially
1402 useful to obtain the text label of an enum value.
1404 * Intel MPX bound violation handling.
1406 Segmentation faults caused by a Intel MPX boundary violation
1407 now display the kind of violation (upper or lower), the memory
1408 address accessed and the memory bounds, along with the usual
1409 signal received and code location.
1413 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
1414 Upper bound violation while accessing address 0x7fffffffc3b3
1415 Bounds: [lower = 0x7fffffffc390, upper = 0x7fffffffc3a3]
1416 0x0000000000400d7c in upper () at i386-mpx-sigsegv.c:68
1418 * Rust language support.
1419 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Rust programming
1420 language. See https://www.rust-lang.org/ for more information about
1423 * Support for running interpreters on specified input/output devices
1425 GDB now supports a new mechanism that allows frontends to provide
1426 fully featured GDB console views, as a better alternative to
1427 building such views on top of the "-interpreter-exec console"
1428 command. See the new "new-ui" command below. With that command,
1429 frontends can now start GDB in the traditional command-line mode
1430 running in an embedded terminal emulator widget, and create a
1431 separate MI interpreter running on a specified i/o device. In this
1432 way, GDB handles line editing, history, tab completion, etc. in the
1433 console all by itself, and the GUI uses the separate MI interpreter
1434 for its own control and synchronization, invisible to the command
1437 * The "catch syscall" command catches groups of related syscalls.
1439 The "catch syscall" command now supports catching a group of related
1440 syscalls using the 'group:' or 'g:' prefix.
1445 skip -gfile file-glob-pattern
1446 skip -function function
1447 skip -rfunction regular-expression
1448 A generalized form of the skip command, with new support for
1449 glob-style file names and regular expressions for function names.
1450 Additionally, a file spec and a function spec may now be combined.
1452 maint info line-table REGEXP
1453 Display the contents of GDB's internal line table data structure.
1456 Run any GDB unit tests that were compiled in.
1459 Start a new user interface instance running INTERP as interpreter,
1460 using the TTY file for input/output.
1464 ** gdb.Breakpoint objects have a new attribute "pending", which
1465 indicates whether the breakpoint is pending.
1466 ** Three new breakpoint-related events have been added:
1467 gdb.breakpoint_created, gdb.breakpoint_modified, and
1468 gdb.breakpoint_deleted.
1470 signal-event EVENTID
1471 Signal ("set") the given MS-Windows event object. This is used in
1472 conjunction with the Windows JIT debugging (AeDebug) support, where
1473 the OS suspends a crashing process until a debugger can attach to
1474 it. Resuming the crashing process, in order to debug it, is done by
1475 signalling an event.
1477 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on s390-linux and s390x-linux
1478 was added in GDBserver, including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's
1479 conditional expression bytecode into native code.
1481 * Support for various remote target protocols and ROM monitors has
1484 target m32rsdi Remote M32R debugging over SDI
1485 target mips MIPS remote debugging protocol
1486 target pmon PMON ROM monitor
1487 target ddb NEC's DDB variant of PMON for Vr4300
1488 target rockhopper NEC RockHopper variant of PMON
1489 target lsi LSI variant of PMO
1491 * Support for tracepoints and fast tracepoints on powerpc-linux,
1492 powerpc64-linux, and powerpc64le-linux was added in GDBserver,
1493 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression
1494 bytecode into native code.
1496 * MI async record =record-started now includes the method and format used for
1497 recording. For example:
1499 =record-started,thread-group="i1",method="btrace",format="bts"
1501 * MI async record =thread-selected now includes the frame field. For example:
1503 =thread-selected,id="3",frame={level="0",addr="0x00000000004007c0"}
1507 Andes NDS32 nds32*-*-elf
1509 *** Changes in GDB 7.11
1511 * GDB now supports debugging kernel-based threads on FreeBSD.
1513 * Per-inferior thread numbers
1515 Thread numbers are now per inferior instead of global. If you're
1516 debugging multiple inferiors, GDB displays thread IDs using a
1517 qualified INF_NUM.THR_NUM form. For example:
1521 1.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8155) (running)
1522 1.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8168) (running)
1523 * 2.1 Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157) (running)
1524 2.2 Thread 0x7ffff7fc1700 (LWP 8190) (running)
1526 As consequence, thread numbers as visible in the $_thread
1527 convenience variable and in Python's InferiorThread.num attribute
1528 are no longer unique between inferiors.
1530 GDB now maintains a second thread ID per thread, referred to as the
1531 global thread ID, which is the new equivalent of thread numbers in
1532 previous releases. See also $_gthread below.
1534 For backwards compatibility, MI's thread IDs always refer to global
1537 * Commands that accept thread IDs now accept the qualified
1538 INF_NUM.THR_NUM form as well. For example:
1541 [Switching to thread 2.1 (Thread 0x7ffff7fc2740 (LWP 8157))] (running)
1544 * In commands that accept a list of thread IDs, you can now refer to
1545 all threads of an inferior using a star wildcard. GDB accepts
1546 "INF_NUM.*", to refer to all threads of inferior INF_NUM, and "*" to
1547 refer to all threads of the current inferior. For example, "info
1550 * You can use "info threads -gid" to display the global thread ID of
1553 * The new convenience variable $_gthread holds the global number of
1556 * The new convenience variable $_inferior holds the number of the
1559 * GDB now displays the ID and name of the thread that hit a breakpoint
1560 or received a signal, if your program is multi-threaded. For
1563 Thread 3 "bar" hit Breakpoint 1 at 0x40087a: file program.c, line 20.
1564 Thread 1 "main" received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
1566 * Record btrace now supports non-stop mode.
1568 * Support for tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver.
1570 * The 'record instruction-history' command now indicates speculative execution
1571 when using the Intel Processor Trace recording format.
1573 * GDB now allows users to specify explicit locations, bypassing
1574 the linespec parser. This feature is also available to GDB/MI
1577 * Multi-architecture debugging is supported on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1578 GDB now is able to debug both AArch64 applications and ARM applications
1581 * Support for fast tracepoints on aarch64-linux was added in GDBserver,
1582 including JIT compiling fast tracepoint's conditional expression bytecode
1585 * GDB now supports displaced stepping on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
1587 * "info threads", "info inferiors", "info display", "info checkpoints"
1588 and "maint info program-spaces" now list the corresponding items in
1589 ascending ID order, for consistency with all other "info" commands.
1591 * In Ada, the overloads selection menu has been enhanced to display the
1592 parameter types and the return types for the matching overloaded subprograms.
1596 maint set target-non-stop (on|off|auto)
1597 maint show target-non-stop
1598 Control whether GDB targets always operate in non-stop mode even if
1599 "set non-stop" is "off". The default is "auto", meaning non-stop
1600 mode is enabled if supported by the target.
1602 maint set bfd-sharing
1603 maint show bfd-sharing
1604 Control the reuse of bfd objects.
1607 show debug bfd-cache
1608 Control display of debugging info regarding bfd caching.
1612 Control display of debugging info regarding FreeBSD threads.
1614 set remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1615 show remote multiprocess-extensions-packet
1616 Set/show the use of the remote protocol multiprocess extensions.
1618 set remote thread-events
1619 show remote thread-events
1620 Set/show the use of thread create/exit events.
1622 set ada print-signatures on|off
1623 show ada print-signatures"
1624 Control whether parameter types and return types are displayed in overloads
1625 selection menus. It is activated (@code{on}) by default.
1629 Controls the maximum size of memory, in bytes, that GDB will
1630 allocate for value contents. Prevents incorrect programs from
1631 causing GDB to allocate overly large buffers. Default is 64k.
1633 * The "disassemble" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1634 It prints mixed source+disassembly like /m with two differences:
1635 - disassembled instructions are now printed in program order, and
1636 - and source for all relevant files is now printed.
1637 The "/m" option is now considered deprecated: its "source-centric"
1638 output hasn't proved useful in practice.
1640 * The "record instruction-history" command accepts a new modifier: /s.
1641 It behaves exactly like /m and prints mixed source+disassembly.
1643 * The "set scheduler-locking" command supports a new mode "replay".
1644 It behaves like "off" in record mode and like "on" in replay mode.
1646 * Support for various ROM monitors has been removed:
1648 target dbug dBUG ROM monitor for Motorola ColdFire
1649 target picobug Motorola picobug monitor
1650 target dink32 DINK32 ROM monitor for PowerPC
1651 target m32r Renesas M32R/D ROM monitor
1652 target mon2000 mon2000 ROM monitor
1653 target ppcbug PPCBUG ROM monitor for PowerPC
1655 * Support for reading/writing memory and extracting values on architectures
1656 whose memory is addressable in units of any integral multiple of 8 bits.
1659 Allows to break when an Ada exception is handled.
1661 * New remote packets
1664 Indicates that an exec system call was executed.
1666 exec-events feature in qSupported
1667 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for exec
1668 events using the new 'gdbfeature' exec-event, and the qSupported
1669 response can contain the corresponding 'stubfeature'. Set and
1670 show commands can be used to display whether these features are enabled.
1673 Equivalent to interrupting with the ^C character, but works in
1676 thread created stop reason (T05 create:...)
1677 Indicates that the thread was just created and is stopped at entry.
1679 thread exit stop reply (w exitcode;tid)
1680 Indicates that the thread has terminated.
1683 Enables/disables thread create and exit event reporting. For
1684 example, this is used in non-stop mode when GDB stops a set of
1685 threads and synchronously waits for the their corresponding stop
1686 replies. Without exit events, if one of the threads exits, GDB
1687 would hang forever not knowing that it should no longer expect a
1688 stop for that same thread.
1691 Indicates that there are no resumed threads left in the target (all
1692 threads are stopped). The remote stub reports support for this stop
1693 reply to GDB's qSupported query.
1696 Enables/disables catching syscalls from the inferior process.
1697 The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's qSupported query.
1699 syscall_entry stop reason
1700 Indicates that a syscall was just called.
1702 syscall_return stop reason
1703 Indicates that a syscall just returned.
1705 * Extended-remote exec events
1707 ** GDB now has support for exec events on extended-remote Linux targets.
1708 For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later, this enables
1709 follow-exec-mode and exec catchpoints.
1711 set remote exec-event-feature-packet
1712 show remote exec-event-feature-packet
1713 Set/show the use of the remote exec event feature.
1715 * Thread names in remote protocol
1717 The reply to qXfer:threads:read may now include a name attribute for each
1720 * Target remote mode fork and exec events
1722 ** GDB now has support for fork and exec events on target remote mode
1723 Linux targets. For such targets with Linux kernels 2.5.46 and later,
1724 this enables follow-fork-mode, detach-on-fork, follow-exec-mode, and
1725 fork and exec catchpoints.
1727 * Remote syscall events
1729 ** GDB now has support for catch syscall on remote Linux targets,
1730 currently enabled on x86/x86_64 architectures.
1732 set remote catch-syscall-packet
1733 show remote catch-syscall-packet
1734 Set/show the use of the remote catch syscall feature.
1738 ** The -var-set-format command now accepts the zero-hexadecimal
1739 format. It outputs data in hexadecimal format with zero-padding on the
1744 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "global_num",
1745 which refers to the thread's global thread ID. The existing
1746 "num" attribute now refers to the thread's per-inferior number.
1747 See "Per-inferior thread numbers" above.
1748 ** gdb.InferiorThread objects have a new attribute "inferior", which
1749 is the Inferior object the thread belongs to.
1751 *** Changes in GDB 7.10
1753 * Support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on aarch64*-linux*
1754 targets has been added. GDB now supports recording of A64 instruction set
1755 including advance SIMD instructions.
1757 * Support for Sun's version of the "stabs" debug file format has been removed.
1759 * GDB now honors the content of the file /proc/PID/coredump_filter
1760 (PID is the process ID) on GNU/Linux systems. This file can be used
1761 to specify the types of memory mappings that will be included in a
1762 corefile. For more information, please refer to the manual page of
1763 "core(5)". GDB also has a new command: "set use-coredump-filter
1764 on|off". It allows to set whether GDB will read the content of the
1765 /proc/PID/coredump_filter file when generating a corefile.
1767 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
1769 "info os cpus" Listing of all cpus/cores on the system
1771 * GDB has two new commands: "set serial parity odd|even|none" and
1772 "show serial parity". These allows to set or show parity for the
1775 * The "info source" command now displays the producer string if it was
1776 present in the debug info. This typically includes the compiler version
1777 and may include things like its command line arguments.
1779 * The "info dll", an alias of the "info sharedlibrary" command,
1780 is now available on all platforms.
1782 * Directory names supplied to the "set sysroot" commands may be
1783 prefixed with "target:" to tell GDB to access shared libraries from
1784 the target system, be it local or remote. This replaces the prefix
1785 "remote:". The default sysroot has been changed from "" to
1786 "target:". "remote:" is automatically converted to "target:" for
1787 backward compatibility.
1789 * The system root specified by "set sysroot" will be prepended to the
1790 filename of the main executable (if reported to GDB as absolute by
1791 the operating system) when starting processes remotely, and when
1792 attaching to already-running local or remote processes.
1794 * GDB now supports automatic location and retrieval of executable
1795 files from remote targets. Remote debugging can now be initiated
1796 using only a "target remote" or "target extended-remote" command
1797 (no "set sysroot" or "file" commands are required). See "New remote
1800 * The "dump" command now supports verilog hex format.
1802 * GDB now supports the vector ABI on S/390 GNU/Linux targets.
1804 * On GNU/Linux, GDB and gdbserver are now able to access executable
1805 and shared library files without a "set sysroot" command when
1806 attaching to processes running in different mount namespaces from
1807 the debugger. This makes it possible to attach to processes in
1808 containers as simply as "gdb -p PID" or "gdbserver --attach PID".
1809 See "New remote packets" below.
1811 * The "tui reg" command now provides completion for all of the
1812 available register groups, including target specific groups.
1814 * The HISTSIZE environment variable is no longer read when determining
1815 the size of GDB's command history. GDB now instead reads the dedicated
1816 GDBHISTSIZE environment variable. Setting GDBHISTSIZE to "-1" or to "" now
1817 disables truncation of command history. Non-numeric values of GDBHISTSIZE
1822 ** Memory ports can now be unbuffered.
1826 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "username",
1827 which is the name of the objfile as specified by the user,
1828 without, for example, resolving symlinks.
1829 ** You can now write frame unwinders in Python.
1830 ** gdb.Type objects have a new method "optimized_out",
1831 returning optimized out gdb.Value instance of this type.
1832 ** gdb.Value objects have new methods "reference_value" and
1833 "const_value" which return a reference to the value and a
1834 "const" version of the value respectively.
1838 maint print symbol-cache
1839 Print the contents of the symbol cache.
1841 maint print symbol-cache-statistics
1842 Print statistics of symbol cache usage.
1844 maint flush-symbol-cache
1845 Flush the contents of the symbol cache.
1849 Start branch trace recording using Branch Trace Store (BTS) format.
1852 Evaluate expression by using the compiler and print result.
1856 Explicit commands for enabling and disabling tui mode.
1859 set mpx bound on i386 and amd64
1860 Support for bound table investigation on Intel MPX enabled applications.
1864 Start branch trace recording using Intel Processor Trace format.
1867 Print information about branch tracing internals.
1869 maint btrace packet-history
1870 Print the raw branch tracing data.
1872 maint btrace clear-packet-history
1873 Discard the stored raw branch tracing data.
1876 Discard all branch tracing data. It will be fetched and processed
1877 anew by the next "record" command.
1882 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-die".
1883 show debug dwarf-die
1884 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-die".
1886 set debug dwarf-read
1887 Renamed from "set debug dwarf2-read".
1888 show debug dwarf-read
1889 Renamed from "show debug dwarf2-read".
1891 maint set dwarf always-disassemble
1892 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1893 maint show dwarf always-disassemble
1894 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 always-disassemble".
1896 maint set dwarf max-cache-age
1897 Renamed from "maint set dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1898 maint show dwarf max-cache-age
1899 Renamed from "maint show dwarf2 max-cache-age".
1901 set debug dwarf-line
1902 show debug dwarf-line
1903 Control display of debugging info regarding DWARF line processing.
1906 show max-completions
1907 Set the maximum number of candidates to be considered during
1908 completion. The default value is 200. This limit allows GDB
1909 to avoid generating large completion lists, the computation of
1910 which can cause the debugger to become temporarily unresponsive.
1912 set history remove-duplicates
1913 show history remove-duplicates
1914 Control the removal of duplicate history entries.
1916 maint set symbol-cache-size
1917 maint show symbol-cache-size
1918 Control the size of the symbol cache.
1920 set|show record btrace bts buffer-size
1921 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1923 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1924 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1926 set debug linux-namespaces
1927 show debug linux-namespaces
1928 Control display of debugging info regarding Linux namespaces.
1930 set|show record btrace pt buffer-size
1931 Set and show the size of the ring buffer used for branch tracing in
1932 Intel Processor Trace format.
1933 The obtained size may differ from the requested size. Use "info
1934 record" to see the obtained buffer size.
1936 maint set|show btrace pt skip-pad
1937 Set and show whether PAD packets are skipped when computing the
1940 * The command 'thread apply all' can now support new option '-ascending'
1941 to call its specified command for all threads in ascending order.
1943 * Python/Guile scripting
1945 ** GDB now supports auto-loading of Python/Guile scripts contained in the
1946 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts'.
1948 * New remote packets
1950 qXfer:btrace-conf:read
1951 Return the branch trace configuration for the current thread.
1953 Qbtrace-conf:bts:size
1954 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in BTS format.
1957 Enable Intel Processor Trace-based branch tracing for the current
1958 process. The remote stub reports support for this packet to GDB's
1961 Qbtrace-conf:pt:size
1962 Set the requested ring buffer size for branch tracing in Intel Processor
1966 Indicates a memory breakpoint instruction was executed, irrespective
1967 of whether it was GDB that planted the breakpoint or the breakpoint
1968 is hardcoded in the program. This is required for correct non-stop
1972 Indicates the target stopped for a hardware breakpoint. This is
1973 required for correct non-stop mode operation.
1976 Return information about files on the remote system.
1978 qXfer:exec-file:read
1979 Return the full absolute name of the file that was executed to
1980 create a process running on the remote system.
1983 Select the filesystem on which vFile: operations with filename
1984 arguments will operate. This is required for GDB to be able to
1985 access files on remote targets where the remote stub does not
1986 share a common filesystem with the inferior(s).
1989 Indicates that a fork system call was executed.
1992 Indicates that a vfork system call was executed.
1994 vforkdone stop reason
1995 Indicates that a vfork child of the specified process has executed
1996 an exec or exit, allowing the vfork parent to resume execution.
1998 fork-events and vfork-events features in qSupported
1999 The qSupported packet allows GDB to request support for fork and
2000 vfork events using new 'gdbfeatures' fork-events and vfork-events,
2001 and the qSupported response can contain the corresponding
2002 'stubfeatures'. Set and show commands can be used to display
2003 whether these features are enabled.
2005 * Extended-remote fork events
2007 ** GDB now has support for fork events on extended-remote Linux
2008 targets. For targets with Linux kernels 2.5.60 and later, this
2009 enables follow-fork-mode and detach-on-fork for both fork and
2010 vfork, as well as fork and vfork catchpoints.
2012 * The info record command now shows the recording format and the
2013 branch tracing configuration for the current thread when using
2014 the btrace record target.
2015 For the BTS format, it shows the ring buffer size.
2017 * GDB now has support for DTrace USDT (Userland Static Defined
2018 Tracing) probes. The supported targets are x86_64-*-linux-gnu.
2020 * GDB now supports access to vector registers on S/390 GNU/Linux
2023 * Removed command line options
2025 -xdb HP-UX XDB compatibility mode.
2027 * Removed targets and native configurations
2029 HP/PA running HP-UX hppa*-*-hpux*
2030 Itanium running HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
2032 * New configure options
2035 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with support for
2036 Intel Processor Trace (default: auto). This requires libipt.
2038 --with-libipt-prefix=PATH
2039 Specify the path to the version of libipt that GDB should use.
2040 $PATH/include should contain the intel-pt.h header and
2041 $PATH/lib should contain the libipt.so library.
2043 *** Changes in GDB 7.9.1
2047 ** Xmethods can now specify a result type.
2049 *** Changes in GDB 7.9
2051 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on x86 GNU Hurd.
2055 ** You can now access frame registers from Python scripts.
2056 ** New attribute 'producer' for gdb.Symtab objects.
2057 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "progspace",
2058 which is the gdb.Progspace object of the containing program space.
2059 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "owner".
2060 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new attribute "build_id",
2061 which is the build ID generated when the file was built.
2062 ** gdb.Objfile objects have a new method "add_separate_debug_file".
2063 ** A new event "gdb.clear_objfiles" has been added, triggered when
2064 selecting a new file to debug.
2065 ** You can now add attributes to gdb.Objfile and gdb.Progspace objects.
2066 ** New function gdb.lookup_objfile.
2068 New events which are triggered when GDB modifies the state of the
2071 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_pre: Function call is about to be made.
2072 ** gdb.events.inferior_call_post: Function call has just been made.
2073 ** gdb.events.memory_changed: A memory location has been altered.
2074 ** gdb.events.register_changed: A register has been altered.
2076 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2078 ** $_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2079 ** $_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2080 ** $_any_caller_is(name [, number_of_frames])
2081 ** $_any_caller_matches(regexp [, number_of_frames])
2083 * GDB now supports the compilation and injection of source code into
2084 the inferior. GDB will use GCC 5.0 or higher built with libcc1.so
2085 to compile the source code to object code, and if successful, inject
2086 and execute that code within the current context of the inferior.
2087 Currently the C language is supported. The commands used to
2088 interface with this new feature are:
2090 compile code [-raw|-r] [--] [source code]
2091 compile file [-raw|-r] filename
2095 demangle [-l language] [--] name
2096 Demangle "name" in the specified language, or the current language
2097 if elided. This command is renamed from the "maint demangle" command.
2098 The latter is kept as a no-op to avoid "maint demangle" being interpreted
2099 as "maint demangler-warning".
2101 queue-signal signal-name-or-number
2102 Queue a signal to be delivered to the thread when it is resumed.
2104 add-auto-load-scripts-directory directory
2105 Add entries to the list of directories from which to load auto-loaded
2108 maint print user-registers
2109 List all currently available "user" registers.
2111 compile code [-r|-raw] [--] [source code]
2112 Compile, inject, and execute in the inferior the executable object
2113 code produced by compiling the provided source code.
2115 compile file [-r|-raw] filename
2116 Compile and inject into the inferior the executable object code
2117 produced by compiling the source code stored in the filename
2120 * On resume, GDB now always passes the signal the program had stopped
2121 for to the thread the signal was sent to, even if the user changed
2122 threads before resuming. Previously GDB would often (but not
2123 always) deliver the signal to the thread that happens to be current
2126 * Conversely, the "signal" command now consistently delivers the
2127 requested signal to the current thread. GDB now asks for
2128 confirmation if the program had stopped for a signal and the user
2129 switched threads meanwhile.
2131 * "breakpoint always-inserted" modes "off" and "auto" merged.
2133 Now, when 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' is set to "off", GDB
2134 won't remove breakpoints from the target until all threads stop,
2135 even in non-stop mode. The "auto" mode has been removed, and "off"
2136 is now the default mode.
2140 set debug symbol-lookup
2141 show debug symbol-lookup
2142 Control display of debugging info regarding symbol lookup.
2146 ** The -list-thread-groups command outputs an exit-code field for
2147 inferiors that have exited.
2151 MIPS SDE mips*-sde*-elf*
2155 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2157 Alpha running OSF/1 (or Tru64) alpha*-*-osf*
2158 SGI Irix-5.x mips-*-irix5*
2159 SGI Irix-6.x mips-*-irix6*
2160 VAX running (4.2 - 4.3 Reno) BSD vax-*-bsd*
2161 VAX running Ultrix vax-*-ultrix*
2163 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2164 and "assf"), have been removed. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2165 its alias "share", instead.
2167 *** Changes in GDB 7.8
2169 * New command line options
2172 This is an alias for the --data-directory option.
2174 * GDB supports printing and modifying of variable length automatic arrays
2175 as specified in ISO C99.
2177 * The ARM simulator now supports instruction level tracing
2178 with or without disassembly.
2182 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
2183 available is determined at configure time.
2184 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
2185 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
2187 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2191 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
2195 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
2197 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
2198 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
2200 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
2201 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
2205 set print symbol-loading (off|brief|full)
2206 show print symbol-loading
2207 Control whether to print informational messages when loading symbol
2208 information for a file. The default is "full", but when debugging
2209 programs with large numbers of shared libraries the amount of output
2210 becomes less useful.
2212 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
2213 show guile print-stack
2214 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
2216 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
2217 show auto-load guile-scripts
2218 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
2220 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
2221 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
2222 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
2223 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
2224 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
2225 usage of this option.
2227 set auto-connect-native-target
2229 Control whether GDB is allowed to automatically connect to the
2230 native target for the run, attach, etc. commands when not connected
2231 to any target yet. See also "target native" below.
2233 set record btrace replay-memory-access (read-only|read-write)
2234 show record btrace replay-memory-access
2235 Control what memory accesses are allowed during replay.
2237 maint set target-async (on|off)
2238 maint show target-async
2239 This controls whether GDB targets operate in synchronous or
2240 asynchronous mode. Normally the default is asynchronous, if it is
2241 available; but this can be changed to more easily debug problems
2242 occurring only in synchronous mode.
2244 set mi-async (on|off)
2246 Control whether MI asynchronous mode is preferred. This supersedes
2247 "set target-async" of previous GDB versions.
2249 * "set target-async" is deprecated as a CLI option and is now an alias
2250 for "set mi-async" (only puts MI into async mode).
2252 * Background execution commands (e.g., "c&", "s&", etc.) are now
2253 possible ``out of the box'' if the target supports them. Previously
2254 the user would need to explicitly enable the possibility with the
2255 "set target-async on" command.
2257 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2259 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
2260 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
2261 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
2262 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
2263 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
2265 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
2266 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
2267 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
2269 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
2270 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
2271 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
2272 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
2273 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
2274 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
2275 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
2277 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
2278 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
2280 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
2281 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
2282 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
2284 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
2285 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
2286 memory or registers.
2288 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
2290 * The "compare-sections" command is no longer specific to target
2291 remote. It now works with all targets.
2293 * All native targets are now consistently called "native".
2294 Consequently, the "target child", "target GNU", "target djgpp",
2295 "target procfs" (Solaris/Irix/OSF/AIX) and "target darwin-child"
2296 commands have been replaced with "target native". The QNX/NTO port
2297 leaves the "procfs" target in place and adds a "native" target for
2298 consistency with other ports. The impact on users should be minimal
2299 as these commands previously either throwed an error, or were
2300 no-ops. The target's name is visible in the output of the following
2301 commands: "help target", "info target", "info files", "maint print
2304 * The "target native" command now connects to the native target. This
2305 can be used to launch native programs even when "set
2306 auto-connect-native-target" is set to off.
2308 * GDB now supports access to Intel MPX registers on GNU/Linux.
2310 * Support for Intel AVX-512 registers on GNU/Linux.
2311 Support displaying and modifying Intel AVX-512 registers
2312 $zmm0 - $zmm31 and $k0 - $k7 on GNU/Linux.
2314 * New remote packets
2316 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
2317 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
2318 branch trace incrementally.
2322 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
2323 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
2325 ** New `Xmethods' feature in the Python API. Xmethods are
2326 additional methods or replacements for existing methods of a C++
2327 class. This feature is useful for those cases where a method
2328 defined in C++ source code could be inlined or optimized out by
2329 the compiler, making it unavailable to GDB.
2332 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
2334 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
2335 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
2336 its alias "share", instead.
2338 * The commands "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" are no longer
2339 supported. Use "set serial baud" and "show serial baud" (respectively)
2344 ** A new option "-gdb-set mi-async" replaces "-gdb-set
2345 target-async". The latter is left as a deprecated alias of the
2346 former for backward compatibility. If the target supports it,
2347 CLI background execution commands are now always possible by
2348 default, independently of whether the frontend stated a
2349 preference for asynchronous execution with "-gdb-set mi-async".
2350 Previously "-gdb-set target-async off" affected both MI execution
2351 commands and CLI execution commands.
2353 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
2355 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
2356 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
2357 recording has been added.
2359 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
2361 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
2362 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
2364 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
2365 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
2366 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
2367 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
2368 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
2369 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
2372 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
2374 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
2376 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
2377 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
2378 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
2379 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
2384 (gdb) info registers rax
2387 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
2388 "*value not available*".
2390 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
2395 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
2396 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
2397 ** Line tables representation has been added.
2398 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
2399 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
2400 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
2404 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
2405 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
2406 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
2408 * Removed native configurations
2410 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
2411 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
2413 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2414 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2415 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
2416 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
2417 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2418 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2419 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
2423 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
2424 maint check-psymtabs
2425 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
2427 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
2428 maint expand-symtabs
2429 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
2432 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2434 maint set|show per-command
2435 maint set|show per-command space
2436 maint set|show per-command time
2437 maint set|show per-command symtab
2438 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
2440 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
2441 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
2442 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
2443 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
2444 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
2447 info exceptions REGEXP
2448 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
2449 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
2454 set debug symfile off|on
2456 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
2457 symbol tables within those files
2459 set print raw frame-arguments
2460 show print raw frame-arguments
2461 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
2462 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
2464 set remote trace-status-packet
2465 show remote trace-status-packet
2466 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
2470 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
2474 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
2476 set startup-with-shell
2477 show startup-with-shell
2478 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
2483 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
2484 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
2486 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
2487 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
2488 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
2489 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
2492 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
2493 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
2494 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
2496 * New command-line options
2498 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
2500 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
2501 buffer in Common Trace Format.
2503 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
2506 * GDB now implements the C++ 'typeid' operator.
2508 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
2509 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
2511 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
2512 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
2514 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
2515 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
2516 due to an uncaught signal.
2520 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
2521 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
2522 command, which should contain "language-option".
2524 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
2525 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
2527 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
2528 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
2529 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
2530 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2531 "undefined-command-error-code".
2533 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
2536 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
2538 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
2539 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
2542 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
2543 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
2545 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
2546 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
2547 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
2549 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
2550 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
2551 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
2552 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
2553 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
2554 "exec-run-start-option".
2556 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
2557 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
2559 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
2560 the new "info exceptions" command.
2562 * New system-wide configuration scripts
2563 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
2564 configuration scripts for the following systems:
2568 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
2569 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
2570 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
2573 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
2574 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
2576 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
2577 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
2578 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
2580 * New remote packets
2584 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
2585 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
2586 involvemement at each single-step.
2588 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
2589 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
2590 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
2591 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
2592 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
2593 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
2596 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
2598 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
2599 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
2601 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
2602 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
2603 trace state variables.
2605 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
2608 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
2609 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
2611 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
2613 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
2614 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
2615 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
2616 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
2618 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
2620 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
2621 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
2622 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
2623 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
2625 set|show record full insn-number-max
2626 set|show record full stop-at-limit
2627 set|show record full memory-query
2629 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
2630 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
2631 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
2632 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
2633 This new recording method can be enabled using:
2637 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
2638 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
2640 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
2641 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
2642 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
2644 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
2645 instruction granularity
2647 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
2648 function granularity
2650 * New native configurations
2652 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
2653 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
2654 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2655 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
2659 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
2660 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
2661 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
2662 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
2663 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
2665 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
2666 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
2667 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
2668 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
2669 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
2670 --data-directory command-line option.
2672 * New command line options:
2674 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
2675 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
2677 * Removed command line options
2679 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
2682 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
2685 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
2689 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
2691 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
2693 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
2695 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
2697 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
2698 of architecture in the Python API.
2700 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
2701 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
2703 * New Python-based convenience functions:
2705 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
2706 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
2708 ** $_regex(str, regex)
2710 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
2713 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
2714 default for GCC since November 2000.
2716 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
2718 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
2719 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
2721 * New configure options
2723 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
2724 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
2725 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
2726 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
2727 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
2728 options allow the user to override that default.
2729 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
2730 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
2731 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
2733 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2736 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
2737 conditions to be attached.
2740 List the BFDs known to GDB.
2742 python-interactive [command]
2744 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
2745 and print the result of expressions.
2748 "py" is a new alias for "python".
2750 enable type-printer [name]...
2751 disable type-printer [name]...
2752 Enable or disable type printers.
2756 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
2757 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
2762 set print type methods (on|off)
2763 show print type methods
2764 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
2765 The default is to show them.
2767 set print type typedefs (on|off)
2768 show print type typedefs
2769 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
2770 The default is to show them.
2772 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
2773 show filename-display
2774 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
2775 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
2777 set trace-buffer-size
2778 show trace-buffer-size
2779 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
2781 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
2782 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
2783 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
2787 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
2790 set debug coff-pe-read
2791 show debug coff-pe-read
2792 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
2797 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
2800 set debug notification
2801 show debug notification
2802 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
2806 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
2807 "=cmd-param-changed".
2808 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
2809 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
2810 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
2811 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
2812 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
2813 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
2814 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
2815 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
2817 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
2818 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
2819 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
2820 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
2821 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
2822 library load/unload events.
2823 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
2824 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
2825 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
2826 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
2827 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
2828 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
2829 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
2830 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
2832 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
2833 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
2834 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
2835 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
2837 * New remote packets
2840 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
2841 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2844 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
2845 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
2849 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
2850 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2853 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
2854 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
2856 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
2858 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
2859 for more x32 ABI info.
2861 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
2863 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
2865 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
2866 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
2867 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
2868 "info os files" lists file descriptors
2869 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
2870 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
2871 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
2872 "info os msg" lists message queues
2873 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
2875 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
2876 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
2877 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
2878 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
2879 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
2880 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
2882 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
2883 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
2884 record/replay support.
2886 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
2890 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
2893 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
2895 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
2896 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
2898 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
2900 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
2901 the source at which the symbol was defined.
2903 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
2904 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
2905 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
2908 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
2909 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
2911 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
2912 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
2913 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
2915 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
2916 object associated with a PC value.
2918 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
2919 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
2921 * Go language support.
2922 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
2925 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
2926 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
2928 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
2929 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
2931 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
2932 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
2933 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
2934 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
2935 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
2938 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
2939 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
2940 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
2941 build/libcpp/expr.c.
2943 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
2944 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
2946 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
2947 since December 2007.
2949 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
2950 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
2951 command does. For instance:
2953 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
2955 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
2956 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
2957 created, using the "condition" command.
2959 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
2960 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
2962 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
2964 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
2965 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
2966 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
2967 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
2968 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
2969 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
2970 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
2971 files with older .gdb_index sections.
2973 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
2974 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
2975 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
2976 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
2977 the .gdb_index section.
2979 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
2981 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
2986 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
2988 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
2992 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2993 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
2994 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
2996 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
2997 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
2999 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
3002 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
3003 C++ and Java objects.
3005 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
3006 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
3007 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
3008 configured with '--with-python'.
3010 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
3011 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
3012 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
3013 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
3014 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
3015 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
3016 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
3018 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
3019 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
3020 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
3021 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
3023 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
3024 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
3025 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
3026 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
3028 ** "set print symbol"
3030 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
3031 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
3032 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
3034 * Deprecated commands
3036 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
3037 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
3041 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3042 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
3044 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
3045 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
3046 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
3047 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
3052 set mips compression
3053 show mips compression
3054 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
3055 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
3058 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
3060 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
3061 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
3062 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
3063 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
3065 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
3069 Disable auto-loading globally.
3072 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
3074 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
3075 show auto-load gdb-scripts
3076 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
3078 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
3079 show auto-load python-scripts
3080 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
3082 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
3083 show auto-load local-gdbinit
3084 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
3086 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
3087 show auto-load libthread-db
3088 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
3090 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3091 show auto-load scripts-directory
3092 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
3093 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
3094 of the directories listed by this option.
3095 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3097 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
3098 show auto-load safe-path
3099 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
3100 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
3102 set debug auto-load on|off
3103 show debug auto-load
3104 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
3106 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
3108 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
3109 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
3110 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
3111 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
3113 set dprintf-function <expr>
3114 show dprintf-function
3115 set dprintf-channel <expr>
3116 show dprintf-channel
3117 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
3118 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
3120 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
3121 show disconnected-dprintf
3122 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
3123 after GDB disconnects.
3125 * New configure options
3127 --with-auto-load-dir
3128 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
3129 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
3130 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
3131 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
3132 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
3134 --with-auto-load-safe-path
3135 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
3136 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
3138 --without-auto-load-safe-path
3139 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
3142 * New remote packets
3144 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
3146 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
3147 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
3148 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
3149 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
3153 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
3154 program without GDB involvement.
3156 * New command line options
3158 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
3159 before loading inferior.
3160 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
3161 execute it before loading inferior.
3163 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
3165 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
3166 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
3167 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
3168 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
3171 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
3172 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
3174 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
3175 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
3176 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
3177 target hardware watchpoint.
3179 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
3180 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
3181 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
3182 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
3186 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
3187 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
3190 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
3191 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
3192 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
3193 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
3194 now "message", which just prints the error message without
3197 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
3200 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
3201 modules library. This module provides functionality for
3202 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
3203 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
3204 corresponding value.
3206 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
3207 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
3208 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
3211 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
3212 static_block will return the global and static blocks
3213 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
3214 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
3216 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
3218 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
3221 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
3222 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
3223 available in the CLI.
3225 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
3226 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
3227 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
3228 "some_type.items()".
3230 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
3233 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
3234 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
3235 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
3236 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
3237 any anonymous fields.
3241 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
3244 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
3245 "=breakpoint-modified".
3247 ** New command -ada-task-info.
3249 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
3250 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
3251 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
3254 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
3255 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
3256 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
3257 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
3258 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
3260 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
3261 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
3263 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
3264 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
3265 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
3266 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
3267 use this option to specify where to find it.
3269 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3270 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
3271 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
3272 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
3273 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
3274 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3275 section in the user manual for more details.
3277 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
3278 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
3279 become available after that.
3281 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
3283 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
3284 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
3290 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
3291 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
3295 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
3296 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
3297 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
3299 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
3300 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
3301 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
3303 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
3304 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
3305 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
3306 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
3307 name starts with a hyphen.
3309 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
3310 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
3311 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
3312 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
3313 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
3314 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
3315 number of bytes that will be collected.
3318 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
3319 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
3320 setting the variable trace-notes.
3323 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
3324 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
3325 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
3328 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
3329 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
3330 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
3331 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
3332 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
3335 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
3336 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
3337 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
3341 set debug dwarf2-read
3342 show debug dwarf2-read
3343 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
3344 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
3346 set debug symtab-create
3347 show debug symtab-create
3348 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
3349 creation. The default is off.
3352 show extended-prompt
3353 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
3354 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
3355 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
3356 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
3357 prompt is displayed.
3359 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
3360 show print entry-values
3361 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
3362 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
3363 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
3365 set debug entry-values
3366 show debug entry-values
3367 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
3368 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
3370 set basenames-may-differ
3371 show basenames-may-differ
3372 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
3373 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
3374 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
3375 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
3376 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
3377 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
3378 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
3379 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
3385 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
3386 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
3387 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
3388 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
3390 set trace-stop-notes
3391 show trace-stop-notes
3392 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
3393 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
3394 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
3395 started by someone else.
3397 * New remote packets
3401 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3405 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
3409 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
3413 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
3417 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
3420 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
3421 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
3425 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
3429 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
3431 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
3433 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
3435 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
3437 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
3438 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
3439 matches the given regular expression.
3441 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
3443 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
3444 dumping the instruction opcodes.
3446 * New command line options
3448 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
3449 This is mostly for testing purposes.
3451 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
3452 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
3454 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
3455 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
3456 source path list instead of augmenting it.
3458 * GDB now understands thread names.
3460 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
3461 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
3463 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
3464 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
3467 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
3468 has been integrated into GDB.
3472 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
3473 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
3474 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
3476 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3477 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
3478 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
3479 and allows for more dynamic content.
3481 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
3482 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
3483 have an is_valid method.
3485 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
3486 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
3487 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
3489 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
3491 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
3492 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
3493 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
3494 that function like so:
3496 result = some_value (10,20)
3498 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
3499 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
3500 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
3502 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
3503 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
3504 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
3505 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
3506 New function: register_pretty_printer.
3508 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
3509 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
3511 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
3513 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
3516 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
3517 holds the thread's name.
3519 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
3520 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
3521 occurring in the process being debugged.
3522 The following events are currently supported:
3523 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
3524 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
3525 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
3529 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
3530 instantiation. For example, if you have:
3532 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
3534 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
3535 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
3536 was added to GCC 4.5.
3538 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
3539 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
3540 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
3541 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
3542 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
3543 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
3545 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
3546 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
3547 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
3548 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
3549 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
3551 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
3552 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
3553 execution to a label.
3555 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
3556 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
3557 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
3558 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
3560 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
3561 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
3562 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
3565 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
3567 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
3568 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
3569 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
3570 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
3571 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
3572 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
3575 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
3577 While now you see this:
3580 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
3582 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
3585 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
3586 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
3587 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
3588 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
3590 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
3591 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
3592 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
3593 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
3594 section in the user manual for more details.
3596 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3598 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
3599 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
3601 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
3603 * New native configurations
3605 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
3609 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
3611 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
3612 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
3613 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
3614 in the GDB user manual.
3616 * Guile support was removed.
3618 * New features in the GNU simulator
3620 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
3622 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
3624 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
3626 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
3628 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
3629 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
3630 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
3631 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
3632 was always disabled for such configurations.
3636 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
3638 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
3639 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
3649 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
3650 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
3651 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
3653 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
3655 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
3656 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
3657 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
3658 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
3660 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
3661 mentioned flavors of operators.
3663 ** static const class members
3665 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
3666 class definition has been fixed.
3668 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
3670 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
3671 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
3672 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
3673 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
3674 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
3675 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
3677 * Static tracepoints
3679 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
3680 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
3681 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
3682 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
3683 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
3684 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
3685 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
3686 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
3687 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
3688 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
3689 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
3690 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
3691 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
3692 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
3693 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
3694 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
3695 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
3696 the "New remote packets" section below.
3698 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
3700 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
3701 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
3702 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
3703 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
3707 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
3708 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
3709 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
3710 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
3711 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
3712 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
3713 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
3715 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
3718 * New remote packets
3722 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
3726 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
3727 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
3728 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
3729 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
3730 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
3731 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
3735 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
3739 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
3742 qXfer:statictrace:read
3744 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
3745 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
3746 to gdb's qSupported query.
3750 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
3754 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
3755 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
3757 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
3758 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
3761 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
3763 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
3764 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
3765 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
3766 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
3768 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
3769 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
3770 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
3771 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
3772 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
3773 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
3774 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
3776 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
3777 for static tracepoints support.
3779 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
3781 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
3782 it understands register description.
3784 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
3786 * X86 general purpose registers
3788 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
3789 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
3790 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
3791 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
3792 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
3794 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
3795 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
3796 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
3797 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
3798 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
3799 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
3801 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
3802 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
3803 in the specified file.
3805 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
3806 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
3807 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
3808 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
3809 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
3810 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
3811 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
3812 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
3813 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
3814 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
3818 eval template, expressions...
3819 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
3820 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
3822 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
3823 show target-file-system-kind
3824 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
3827 save breakpoints <filename>
3828 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
3829 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
3830 definitions, use the `source' command.
3832 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
3835 info static-tracepoint-markers
3836 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
3838 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
3839 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
3840 function, line, address, or marker ID.
3844 Enable and disable observer mode.
3846 set may-write-registers on|off
3847 set may-write-memory on|off
3848 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
3849 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
3850 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
3851 set may-interrupt on|off
3852 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
3853 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
3854 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
3855 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
3856 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
3857 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
3858 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
3860 set record memory-query on|off
3861 show record memory-query
3862 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
3863 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
3868 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
3872 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
3873 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
3874 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
3875 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
3876 GDB using Python' in the manual.
3878 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
3879 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
3880 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
3881 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
3883 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
3884 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
3886 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
3888 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
3890 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
3892 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
3893 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
3894 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
3896 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
3897 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
3898 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
3899 regular breakpoints.
3903 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
3905 * D language support.
3906 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
3909 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
3910 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
3911 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
3912 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
3913 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
3915 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
3916 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
3917 conditions of the form:
3919 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
3921 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
3922 interface mentioned above.
3924 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
3928 ** Namespace Support
3930 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
3931 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
3932 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
3933 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
3934 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
3938 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
3939 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
3944 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
3945 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
3949 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
3954 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
3957 * Multi-program debugging.
3959 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
3960 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
3961 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
3962 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
3963 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
3964 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
3965 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
3966 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
3968 * New tracing features
3970 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
3972 ** Trace state variables
3974 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
3975 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
3976 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
3977 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
3978 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
3979 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
3980 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
3981 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
3982 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
3983 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
3987 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
3988 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
3989 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
3990 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
3991 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
3992 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
3993 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
3994 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
3995 the regular trace command.
3997 ** Disconnected tracing
3999 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
4000 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
4001 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
4002 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
4003 connection is lost unexpectedly.
4007 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
4008 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
4009 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
4010 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
4011 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
4012 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
4015 ** Circular trace buffer
4017 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
4018 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
4019 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
4020 not be available for all target agents.
4025 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
4026 the arguments to be comma-separated.
4029 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
4030 which only declare a variable are not shown.
4033 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
4034 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
4037 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
4038 "set script-extension" (see below).
4040 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4042 record save [<FILENAME>]
4043 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
4044 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
4046 record restore <FILENAME>
4047 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
4048 earlier time, for replay debugging.
4050 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
4053 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
4054 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
4055 inferior has loaded.
4060 maint info program-spaces
4061 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
4063 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
4064 show remote interrupt-sequence
4065 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
4066 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
4067 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
4068 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
4069 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
4071 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
4072 show remote interrupt-on-connect
4073 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
4074 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
4077 set remotebreak [on | off]
4079 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
4081 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
4082 Create or modify a trace state variable.
4085 List trace state variables and their values.
4087 delete tvariable $NAME ...
4088 Delete one or more trace state variables.
4091 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
4092 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
4094 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
4095 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
4097 * New expression syntax
4099 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
4100 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
4104 set follow-exec-mode new|same
4105 show follow-exec-mode
4106 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
4107 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
4108 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
4110 set default-collect EXPR, ...
4111 show default-collect
4112 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
4113 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
4114 such as registers or a critical global variable.
4116 set disconnected-tracing
4117 show disconnected-tracing
4118 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
4119 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
4122 set circular-trace-buffer
4123 show circular-trace-buffer
4124 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
4125 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
4126 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
4127 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
4129 set script-extension off|soft|strict
4130 show script-extension
4131 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
4132 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
4133 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
4134 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
4136 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
4138 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
4139 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
4140 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
4141 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
4142 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
4143 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
4144 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
4147 * Python API Improvements
4149 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
4150 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
4151 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
4153 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
4154 `is_base_class' attribute.
4156 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
4158 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
4159 evaluate an expression.
4161 * New remote packets
4164 Define a trace state variable.
4167 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
4170 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
4173 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
4176 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
4180 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
4182 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
4183 much more reliable. In particular:
4184 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
4185 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
4186 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
4187 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
4188 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
4189 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
4190 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
4191 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
4192 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
4193 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
4194 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
4195 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
4196 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
4197 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
4198 non-threaded programs.
4200 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
4201 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
4202 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
4205 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
4207 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
4208 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
4209 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
4210 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
4211 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
4213 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
4214 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
4215 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
4216 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
4217 for tracepoint actions.
4219 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
4220 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
4221 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
4223 * Process record and replay
4225 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
4226 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
4227 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
4230 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
4231 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
4232 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
4235 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
4236 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
4239 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
4240 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
4241 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
4242 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
4243 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
4244 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
4245 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
4246 the installation instructions for more information.
4248 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
4249 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
4250 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
4251 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
4253 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
4254 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
4256 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
4257 now complete on file names.
4259 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
4260 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
4261 For instance, consider:
4263 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
4264 # struct example variable;
4267 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
4268 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
4270 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
4271 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
4273 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
4274 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
4277 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
4278 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
4279 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
4281 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
4282 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
4283 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
4284 and simulator targets may also provide them.
4286 * New remote packets
4289 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4292 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
4293 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
4294 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
4297 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
4298 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
4301 Obtains additional operating system information
4305 Read or write additional signal information.
4307 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
4309 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
4310 packet that permitted the stub to pass a process id was removed.
4311 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
4313 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
4314 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
4316 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
4317 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
4318 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
4320 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
4321 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
4323 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
4325 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
4327 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
4328 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
4330 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote protocol packet now allows passing a
4331 list of section offsets.
4333 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
4334 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
4335 have also been fixed.
4337 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
4338 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
4339 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
4341 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
4344 template<typename T> class C { };
4347 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
4349 ptype C<char const *>
4350 ptype C<char const*>
4351 ptype C<const char *>
4352 ptype C<const char*>
4354 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
4356 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
4357 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4359 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
4360 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4361 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
4363 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
4364 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
4366 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
4369 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
4370 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
4372 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
4373 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
4378 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
4379 available is determined at configure time.
4381 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
4383 * Ada tasking support
4385 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
4389 Print the list of Ada tasks.
4391 Print detailed information about task number N.
4393 Print the task number of the current task.
4395 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
4397 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
4398 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
4400 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
4402 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
4403 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
4404 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
4405 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
4406 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
4407 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
4410 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
4411 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
4414 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
4415 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
4416 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
4417 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
4420 * Multi-architecture debugging.
4422 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
4423 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
4424 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
4425 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
4426 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
4428 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
4429 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
4430 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
4431 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
4432 --enable-targets configure option.
4434 * Non-stop mode debugging.
4436 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
4437 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
4438 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
4439 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
4440 section in the user manual for more information.
4442 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
4443 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
4444 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
4445 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
4446 extensions on linux targets.
4448 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
4450 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
4451 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
4452 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
4453 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
4454 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
4455 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
4456 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
4457 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
4458 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
4460 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
4462 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
4464 maint set python print-stack
4465 maint show python print-stack
4466 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
4469 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
4474 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
4478 Show operating system information about processes.
4481 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
4484 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
4487 Detach from inferior number NUM.
4490 Kill inferior number NUM.
4494 set spu stop-on-load
4495 show spu stop-on-load
4496 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4498 set spu auto-flush-cache
4499 show spu auto-flush-cache
4500 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
4501 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
4503 set sh calling-convention
4504 show sh calling-convention
4505 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
4508 show debug timestamp
4509 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
4511 set disassemble-next-line
4512 show disassemble-next-line
4513 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
4516 set remote noack-packet
4517 show remote noack-packet
4518 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
4519 under "New remote packets."
4521 set remote query-attached-packet
4522 show remote query-attached-packet
4523 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
4525 set remote read-siginfo-object
4526 show remote read-siginfo-object
4527 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
4530 set remote write-siginfo-object
4531 show remote write-siginfo-object
4532 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
4535 set remote reverse-continue
4536 show remote reverse-continue
4537 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
4539 set remote reverse-step
4540 show remote reverse-step
4541 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
4543 set displaced-stepping
4544 show displaced-stepping
4545 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
4546 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
4547 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
4550 show debug displaced
4551 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
4553 maint set internal-error
4554 maint show internal-error
4555 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
4557 maint set internal-warning
4558 maint show internal-warning
4559 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
4564 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
4566 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
4567 show multiple-symbols
4568 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
4569 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
4570 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
4572 set breakpoint always-inserted
4573 show breakpoint always-inserted
4574 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
4575 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
4576 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
4578 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4579 show arm fallback-mode
4580 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
4582 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
4583 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
4584 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
4585 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
4587 set disable-randomization
4588 show disable-randomization
4589 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
4590 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
4591 multiple debugging sessions.
4595 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
4600 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
4601 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
4602 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
4603 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
4605 set target-wide-charset
4606 show target-wide-charset
4607 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
4608 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
4610 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
4612 set tcp connect-timeout
4613 show tcp connect-timeout
4614 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
4615 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
4616 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
4618 set libthread-db-search-path
4619 show libthread-db-search-path
4620 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
4623 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
4624 show schedule-multiple
4625 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
4626 the current process.
4630 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
4631 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
4632 affecting correctness.
4634 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
4635 show interactive-mode
4636 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
4637 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
4638 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
4639 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
4640 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
4645 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
4646 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
4647 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
4651 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
4652 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
4653 alias for the `fork' command.
4656 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
4657 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
4658 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
4661 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
4662 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
4663 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
4667 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
4668 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
4669 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
4672 * New native configurations
4674 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
4676 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
4680 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
4681 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
4682 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
4685 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
4686 (mingw32ce) debugging.
4692 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
4694 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
4696 * New native configurations
4698 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
4699 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4703 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
4704 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
4706 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
4708 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
4709 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
4710 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
4711 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
4713 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
4714 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
4716 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
4719 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
4720 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
4721 and in inlined functions.
4723 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
4724 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
4725 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
4727 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
4729 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
4730 registers on PowerPC targets.
4732 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
4733 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
4735 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
4736 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
4738 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
4739 extended-remote mode.
4741 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
4742 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
4743 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
4744 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
4746 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
4747 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
4748 target architectures.
4750 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
4751 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
4752 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
4753 stored in two consecutive float registers.
4755 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
4758 * Improved support for debugging Ada
4759 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
4761 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
4762 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
4763 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
4764 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
4766 - Improved command completion in Ada
4769 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
4774 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
4775 show print frame-arguments
4776 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
4777 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
4782 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4789 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
4791 * New remote packets
4798 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
4801 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
4805 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
4807 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
4809 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
4810 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
4811 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
4813 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
4814 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
4815 -Bsymbolic linker option.
4817 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
4818 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
4821 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
4822 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
4824 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
4825 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
4827 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
4829 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
4830 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
4831 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
4833 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
4834 automatically displayed as character or string data.
4836 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
4837 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
4840 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
4841 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
4842 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
4844 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
4847 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
4848 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
4849 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
4851 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
4853 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
4855 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
4856 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
4857 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
4859 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
4860 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
4862 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
4863 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
4864 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
4865 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
4866 Windows and SymbianOS).
4868 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
4869 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
4871 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
4872 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
4878 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
4879 when debugging using remote targets.
4881 set mem inaccessible-by-default
4882 show mem inaccessible-by-default
4883 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4884 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4885 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
4886 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
4887 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
4889 set breakpoint auto-hw
4890 show breakpoint auto-hw
4891 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
4892 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
4893 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
4894 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
4895 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
4896 including "next" and "finish".
4899 catch exception unhandled
4900 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
4903 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
4907 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
4908 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
4909 an alias to "set sysroot".
4912 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
4913 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
4916 * New native configurations
4918 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
4921 unset tdesc filename
4923 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
4924 not query the target for its built-in description.
4928 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
4929 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
4930 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
4932 * New remote packets
4935 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
4936 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
4938 qXfer:features:read:
4939 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
4944 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
4945 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
4947 qXfer:libraries:read:
4948 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
4949 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
4950 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
4951 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
4955 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
4963 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
4964 i[34567]86-*-netware*
4965 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
4966 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
4968 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
4971 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
4972 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
4981 * Other removed features
4988 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
4995 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
5000 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
5001 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
5006 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
5007 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
5009 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
5011 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
5012 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
5013 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
5014 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
5016 MIPS ".pdr" sections
5018 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
5019 in debugging information.
5023 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
5024 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
5026 set mips stack-arg-size
5027 set mips saved-gpreg-size
5029 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
5031 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
5036 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
5038 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
5039 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
5040 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
5042 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
5043 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
5046 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
5047 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
5049 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
5050 stub provides the required support.
5052 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
5053 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
5058 unset substitute-path
5059 show substitute-path
5060 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
5061 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
5062 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
5063 between compilation and debugging.
5067 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
5068 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
5069 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
5073 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
5075 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
5076 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
5078 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
5080 * New remote packets
5083 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
5084 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
5085 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
5086 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
5090 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
5091 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
5093 qXfer:memory-map:read:
5094 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
5095 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
5100 Erase and program a flash memory device.
5102 * Removed remote packets
5105 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
5106 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
5108 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
5112 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
5114 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5118 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
5119 only if it doesn't already have a value.
5121 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
5123 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
5125 restart <n> Return the program state to a
5126 previously saved state.
5128 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
5130 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
5132 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
5133 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
5135 info forks List forks of the user program that
5136 are available to be debugged.
5138 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
5139 forks of the user program that are
5140 available to be debugged.
5142 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5143 that are available to be debugged (and
5144 kill the forked process).
5146 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
5147 that are available to be debugged (and
5148 allow the process to continue).
5152 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
5154 * Improved Windows host support
5156 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
5157 native console support, and remote communications using either
5158 network sockets or serial ports.
5160 * Improved Modula-2 language support
5162 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
5163 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
5164 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
5165 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
5166 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
5167 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
5171 The ARM rdi-share module.
5173 The Netware NLM debug server.
5175 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
5177 * New native configurations
5179 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
5180 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
5184 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
5186 * New command line options
5188 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
5189 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
5190 the child (debugged) program exited with.
5191 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
5192 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
5193 specified multiple times and in conjunction
5194 with the --command (-x) option.
5196 * Deprecated commands removed
5198 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
5202 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
5203 othernames set arm disassembler
5204 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
5205 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
5206 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
5209 * New BSD user-level threads support
5211 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
5212 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
5215 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5216 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
5217 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
5219 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
5220 are not yet supported.
5222 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
5223 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
5225 * REMOVED configurations and files
5227 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
5228 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5229 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
5231 * New "set print array-indexes" command
5233 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
5234 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
5237 * VAX floating point support
5239 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
5241 * User-defined command support
5243 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
5244 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
5245 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
5247 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
5249 * New command line option
5251 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
5254 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
5256 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
5257 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
5258 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
5259 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
5260 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
5262 * Internationalization
5264 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
5265 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
5266 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
5270 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
5271 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
5272 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
5274 * New native configurations
5276 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
5280 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
5281 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
5283 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
5285 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5286 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
5287 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
5290 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the registers[]
5291 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
5292 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
5302 powerpc bdm protocol
5304 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5305 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
5307 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5309 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5310 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5311 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5312 permanently REMOVED.
5321 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
5323 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
5325 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
5326 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
5329 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
5331 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
5332 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
5333 IRIX long double values).
5337 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
5338 command. This problem has been fixed.
5340 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
5342 * Fix for ``many threads''
5344 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
5345 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
5348 ptrace: No such process.
5349 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
5351 This problem has been fixed.
5353 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
5355 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
5358 * New ``start'' command.
5360 This command runs the program until the beginning of the main procedure.
5362 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
5364 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
5365 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
5366 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
5368 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5369 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
5370 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
5371 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
5372 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
5373 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5374 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
5375 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
5376 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5378 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
5380 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
5381 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
5382 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
5383 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
5384 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
5386 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
5387 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
5388 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
5390 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
5392 * New native configurations
5394 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
5395 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
5396 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
5397 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
5398 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
5399 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
5400 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
5402 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
5404 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
5405 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
5406 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
5407 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
5408 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
5409 work, was also included.
5411 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
5412 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
5422 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
5423 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
5425 * REMOVED configurations and files
5427 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5428 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5429 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5430 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5431 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5432 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5433 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5434 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5435 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5436 sonymips mips-sony-*
5437 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5439 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
5441 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
5443 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
5444 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
5445 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
5446 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
5449 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
5451 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
5452 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
5453 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
5454 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
5455 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
5456 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
5459 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
5461 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
5463 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
5464 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
5465 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
5467 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
5469 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
5470 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
5472 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
5474 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
5475 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
5476 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
5478 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
5480 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
5481 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
5483 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
5485 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
5486 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
5487 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
5489 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
5491 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
5492 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
5493 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
5495 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
5497 * Removed --with-mmalloc
5499 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
5500 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
5502 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
5504 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
5505 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
5506 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
5507 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
5509 * Revised SPARC target
5511 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
5512 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
5513 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
5514 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
5515 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
5519 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
5520 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
5521 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
5524 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5526 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
5527 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
5530 * C++ nested types and namespaces
5532 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
5533 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
5534 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
5535 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
5536 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
5537 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
5538 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
5539 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
5540 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
5542 * New native configurations
5544 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
5545 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
5546 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
5547 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
5548 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
5550 * New debugging protocols
5552 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
5554 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
5556 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
5557 and its very obscure effect on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
5558 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
5560 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5562 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5563 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5564 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5565 permanently REMOVED.
5567 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
5568 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
5569 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
5570 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
5571 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
5572 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
5573 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
5574 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
5575 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
5576 sonymips mips-sony-*
5577 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
5579 * REMOVED configurations and files
5581 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5582 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5583 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5584 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5585 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5586 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5587 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5588 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5589 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5590 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
5591 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5592 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5593 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5594 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
5595 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
5596 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5597 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5599 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
5603 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
5604 integrated into GDB.
5606 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
5608 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
5609 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
5610 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
5613 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
5614 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
5615 DWARF 2 CFI support.
5619 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
5620 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
5621 remote protocol documentation for details.
5623 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
5625 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
5626 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
5627 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
5630 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
5632 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
5633 per-thread variables.
5635 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
5637 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
5638 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
5640 * Separate debug info.
5642 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
5643 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
5644 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
5645 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
5646 and optional debug files.
5648 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
5650 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
5651 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
5654 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
5655 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
5659 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
5660 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
5661 considered "useable".
5663 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
5665 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
5666 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
5669 * GDB supports logging output to a file
5671 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
5672 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
5674 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
5676 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
5677 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
5680 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
5682 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
5683 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
5687 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
5688 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
5689 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
5690 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
5691 data, for more informative profiling results.
5693 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
5695 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
5696 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
5697 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
5699 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
5702 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
5703 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
5704 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
5705 in a subsequent -var-update.
5707 * New native configurations.
5709 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
5711 * Multi-arched targets.
5713 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
5714 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
5716 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5718 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5719 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5720 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5721 permanently REMOVED.
5723 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
5724 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
5725 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
5726 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
5727 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
5728 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
5729 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
5730 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
5731 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
5732 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
5733 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
5734 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
5736 * REMOVED configurations and files
5739 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5740 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5741 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5742 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5743 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5744 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5746 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5747 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5748 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5749 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5750 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5751 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5753 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
5755 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
5756 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
5757 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
5758 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
5759 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
5761 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
5763 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
5765 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
5766 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
5767 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
5768 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
5769 shared libs like mad''.
5771 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
5773 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
5774 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
5775 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
5776 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
5778 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
5780 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
5781 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
5784 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
5785 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
5787 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
5788 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
5790 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
5791 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
5792 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
5793 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
5795 * Multi-arched targets.
5797 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
5798 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
5800 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
5801 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
5802 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
5806 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
5809 * New native configurations
5811 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
5812 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
5813 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
5814 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
5816 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5818 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5819 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5820 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5821 permanently REMOVED.
5823 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
5824 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
5825 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
5826 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
5827 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5828 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
5829 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
5830 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
5831 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
5832 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
5834 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
5835 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
5837 * OBSOLETE languages
5839 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
5841 * REMOVED configurations and files
5843 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5844 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5845 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5846 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5847 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5849 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5851 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
5853 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
5854 commands. The default is 1024.
5856 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
5858 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
5860 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
5862 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
5863 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
5864 from a file into memory (restore).
5866 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
5868 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
5869 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
5870 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
5872 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
5880 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
5881 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
5882 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
5884 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
5885 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
5886 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
5888 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
5889 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
5890 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
5892 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
5893 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
5894 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
5896 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
5898 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
5900 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
5901 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
5902 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
5903 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
5904 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
5905 (notably embedded) targets.
5907 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
5909 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
5910 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
5911 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
5912 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
5914 * New command line option
5916 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
5918 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
5920 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
5921 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
5922 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
5923 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
5924 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
5925 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
5926 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
5927 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
5928 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
5929 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
5931 * Changes in ARM configurations.
5933 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
5934 configuration is fully multi-arch.
5936 * New native configurations
5938 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
5939 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
5940 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
5941 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
5945 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
5947 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
5949 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
5950 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
5951 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
5952 permanently REMOVED.
5954 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
5955 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
5956 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5957 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5958 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5960 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
5962 * REMOVED configurations and files
5964 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
5966 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
5967 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
5968 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
5969 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
5970 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
5971 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
5972 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
5973 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
5974 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
5975 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
5976 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
5978 * Changes to command line processing
5980 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
5981 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
5983 * Changes to key bindings
5985 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
5987 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
5989 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
5991 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
5994 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
5996 Numerous documentation fixes.
5998 Numerous testsuite fixes.
6000 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
6002 * New native configurations
6004 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
6005 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
6006 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
6007 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6008 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
6009 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
6013 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
6015 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
6017 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
6019 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
6020 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
6021 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
6022 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
6023 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6025 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
6026 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6027 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6028 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
6029 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
6030 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
6031 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
6032 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
6034 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
6035 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
6037 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
6038 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
6039 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
6040 permanently REMOVED.
6042 * REMOVED configurations and files
6044 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6045 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6047 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6051 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
6053 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
6054 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
6059 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
6061 * The MI enabled by default.
6063 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
6064 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
6065 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
6066 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
6067 which is now deprecated.
6069 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
6071 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
6072 main features are supported:
6074 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
6076 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
6079 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
6081 - a Pascal expression parser.
6083 However, some important features are not yet supported.
6085 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
6087 - there are some problems with boolean types;
6089 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
6090 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
6092 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
6094 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
6096 * Changes in completion.
6098 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
6099 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
6100 users expect at the shell prompt.
6102 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
6103 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
6104 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
6105 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
6106 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
6107 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
6108 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
6110 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
6112 * New platform-independent commands:
6114 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
6115 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
6116 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
6118 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
6120 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
6121 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
6122 many threads as your system allows you to have.
6124 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
6126 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
6127 multi-threaded programs though.
6129 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
6131 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
6133 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
6134 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
6137 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
6139 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
6140 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
6141 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
6142 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
6143 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
6146 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
6147 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
6148 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
6150 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
6152 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
6153 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
6155 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
6156 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
6159 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
6160 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
6161 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
6162 a given linear address.
6164 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
6165 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
6166 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
6168 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
6170 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
6172 * Changes in documentation.
6174 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
6175 Documentation License.
6177 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6180 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
6182 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
6185 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
6186 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
6187 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
6189 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
6191 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
6192 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
6193 contents of this file.
6197 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
6199 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
6201 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
6203 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
6204 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
6205 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
6206 greater level of detail.
6208 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
6210 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
6211 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
6212 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
6215 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
6217 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
6218 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
6219 machines ``out of the box''.
6221 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
6222 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
6223 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
6224 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
6225 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
6227 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
6228 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
6229 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
6230 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
6231 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
6233 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
6234 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
6237 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
6240 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
6241 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
6242 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
6243 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
6245 * New native configurations
6247 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
6248 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6252 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
6253 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
6254 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
6255 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
6257 * OBSOLETE configurations
6259 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
6260 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
6262 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
6265 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6266 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6267 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6268 be permanently REMOVED.
6270 * Gould support removed
6272 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
6274 * New features for SVR4
6276 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
6277 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
6278 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
6280 * Many C++ enhancements
6282 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
6283 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
6285 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
6287 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
6288 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
6289 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
6290 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
6292 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
6293 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
6295 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
6297 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
6298 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
6299 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
6301 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
6302 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
6304 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
6306 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
6307 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
6308 include ``set remote P-packet''.
6310 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
6312 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
6313 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
6314 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
6316 * ``apropos'' command added.
6318 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
6319 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
6320 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
6324 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
6325 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
6326 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
6327 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
6328 enabled by configuring with:
6330 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
6332 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
6334 * New native configurations
6336 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
6337 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
6338 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
6342 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
6343 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
6344 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
6346 * OBSOLETE configurations
6348 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
6350 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
6351 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
6352 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
6353 be permanently REMOVED.
6357 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
6358 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
6359 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
6360 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
6361 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
6362 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
6363 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
6368 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
6370 * set extension-language
6372 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
6373 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
6374 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
6375 set extension-language .c c++
6376 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
6377 and their associated languages.
6379 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
6381 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
6382 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
6383 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
6387 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
6388 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
6390 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
6391 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
6393 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
6394 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
6395 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
6396 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
6397 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
6398 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
6399 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
6400 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
6402 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
6403 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
6404 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
6405 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
6409 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
6410 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
6411 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
6412 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
6413 for xdb and dbx commands.
6417 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
6418 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
6419 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
6421 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
6422 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
6423 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
6425 * Debugging across forks
6427 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
6432 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
6433 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
6434 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
6436 * GDB remote protocol additions
6438 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
6439 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
6440 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
6441 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
6443 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
6444 full 64-bit address. The command
6446 set remoteaddresssize 32
6448 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
6449 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
6452 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
6453 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
6455 maint packet heythere
6457 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
6458 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
6461 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
6462 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
6463 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
6465 * Tracing can collect general expressions
6467 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
6468 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
6469 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
6471 * mask-address variable for Mips
6473 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
6474 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
6475 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
6477 * Higher serial baud rates
6479 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
6480 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
6481 to achieve all of these rates.)
6485 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
6486 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
6489 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
6491 * New native configurations
6493 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
6494 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
6495 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
6496 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
6497 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
6498 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
6499 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
6503 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
6504 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
6505 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
6506 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
6507 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
6508 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
6509 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
6510 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
6511 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
6512 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6513 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
6515 * New debugging protocols
6517 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
6518 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
6519 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
6520 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6521 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6522 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
6526 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
6527 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
6532 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
6533 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
6535 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
6537 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
6538 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
6539 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
6541 * Live range splitting
6543 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
6544 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
6545 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
6549 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
6550 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
6554 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
6555 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
6556 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
6561 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
6566 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
6567 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
6568 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
6569 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
6570 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
6571 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
6575 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
6576 the symbol at the specified address.
6580 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
6581 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
6582 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
6583 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
6584 file tracepoint.c for more details.
6588 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
6589 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
6590 of most MIPS variants.
6594 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
6595 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
6596 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
6600 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
6601 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
6602 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
6603 the possible architectures.
6605 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
6607 * New native configurations
6609 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
6610 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
6611 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
6612 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
6613 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
6614 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
6618 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
6619 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
6620 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
6621 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
6622 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
6624 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
6628 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
6629 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
6630 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
6631 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
6632 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
6636 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
6638 * Windows 95/NT native
6640 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
6641 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
6642 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
6643 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
6644 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
6646 * dont-repeat command
6648 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
6649 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
6650 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
6651 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
6653 * Send break instead of ^C
6655 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
6656 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
6657 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
6659 * Remote protocol timeout
6661 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
6662 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
6663 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
6665 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
6667 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
6668 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
6669 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
6670 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
6671 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
6673 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
6674 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
6675 automatically on hpux10.
6677 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
6679 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
6681 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
6683 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
6684 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
6685 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
6686 every character. The default value is 1050.
6688 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
6690 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
6691 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
6692 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
6693 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
6694 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
6695 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
6697 * Speedups for remote debugging
6699 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
6700 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
6701 and more efficient S-record downloading.
6703 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
6705 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
6706 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
6708 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
6710 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
6712 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
6713 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
6715 * Remote targets use caching
6717 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
6718 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
6719 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
6720 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
6721 off' turns the data cache off.
6723 * Remote targets may have threads
6725 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
6726 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
6727 gdb/remote.c for details.
6731 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
6732 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
6733 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
6734 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
6735 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
6736 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
6737 sequence is something like
6739 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
6741 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
6745 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
6746 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
6747 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
6748 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
6749 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
6750 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
6751 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
6752 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
6756 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
6757 but does simplify configuration and building.
6761 GDB now supports hpux10.
6763 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
6765 * New native configurations
6767 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
6768 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
6769 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
6770 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
6774 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
6775 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
6776 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
6777 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
6780 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
6782 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
6783 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
6784 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
6785 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
6786 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
6788 * Arguments to user-defined commands
6790 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
6791 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
6794 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
6796 To execute the command use:
6799 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
6800 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
6801 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
6803 * New `if' and `while' commands
6805 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
6806 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
6807 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
6808 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
6809 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
6810 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
6811 if the expression is zero.
6813 * Fortran source language mode
6815 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
6816 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
6817 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
6818 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
6821 * Better HPUX support
6823 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
6824 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
6825 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
6826 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
6827 that behavior do the following before running the program:
6833 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
6834 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
6840 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
6841 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
6844 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
6845 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
6847 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
6849 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
6850 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
6851 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
6852 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
6853 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
6854 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
6856 * New DOS host serial code
6858 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
6859 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
6862 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
6864 * New "complete" command
6866 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
6867 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
6869 * Trailing space optional in prompt
6871 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
6872 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
6874 * Breakpoint hit counts
6876 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
6877 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
6878 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
6879 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
6880 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
6883 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
6885 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
6886 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
6887 arrays actually contain only short strings.
6889 * Shared library breakpoints
6891 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
6892 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
6894 * Hardware watchpoints
6896 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
6897 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
6899 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
6903 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
6904 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
6906 * Improved Irix 5 support
6908 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
6910 * Improved HPPA support
6912 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
6914 * New native configurations
6916 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
6917 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
6918 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
6919 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
6923 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
6924 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
6927 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
6929 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
6930 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
6934 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
6935 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
6937 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
6939 * Irix 5 is now supported
6943 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
6944 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
6945 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
6946 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
6947 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
6950 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
6952 * User visible changes:
6956 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
6957 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
6958 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
6959 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
6960 debugging info for the mips target).
6962 * DEC Alpha native support
6964 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
6965 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
6966 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
6967 Alpha-specific notes.
6969 * Preliminary thread implementation
6971 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
6973 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
6975 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
6976 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
6979 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
6981 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
6982 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
6983 call methods, ...etc.
6985 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
6987 * User visible changes:
6989 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
6990 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
6991 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
6992 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
6994 Filename completion now works.
6996 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
6997 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
6998 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
7000 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
7001 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
7002 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
7003 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
7004 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
7008 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
7009 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
7012 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
7016 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
7017 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
7018 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
7022 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
7023 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
7024 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
7025 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
7026 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
7030 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
7031 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
7032 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
7034 * New targets supported
7036 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7037 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
7038 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
7039 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
7040 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
7042 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
7043 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
7044 GO32 memory extender.
7046 * New remote protocols
7048 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
7050 * New source languages supported
7052 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
7053 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
7054 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
7057 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
7059 * HP Precision Architecture supported
7061 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
7062 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
7063 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
7064 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
7065 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
7066 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
7068 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
7070 * Faster and better demangling
7072 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
7073 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
7074 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
7075 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
7076 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
7077 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
7080 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
7081 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
7082 compiler does not actually implement.
7084 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
7086 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
7087 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
7088 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
7089 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
7090 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
7091 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
7094 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
7095 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
7097 * Improved configure script
7099 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
7100 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
7101 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
7102 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
7104 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
7105 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
7106 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
7107 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
7108 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
7109 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
7111 * Documentation improvements
7113 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
7114 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
7115 before submitting changes.
7117 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
7118 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
7119 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
7120 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
7121 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
7123 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
7124 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
7125 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
7126 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
7127 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
7128 around this problem.
7132 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
7133 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
7134 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
7137 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
7138 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
7140 * New native hosts supported
7142 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
7143 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
7145 * New targets supported
7147 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
7149 * New file formats supported
7151 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
7152 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
7156 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
7158 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
7159 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
7161 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
7162 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
7163 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
7165 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
7166 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
7168 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
7169 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
7170 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
7173 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
7174 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
7175 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
7176 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
7177 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
7179 * Internal improvements
7181 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
7182 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
7184 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
7185 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
7186 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
7187 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
7188 shared code that handles any of them.
7190 * New command line options
7192 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
7196 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
7197 General Public License.
7199 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
7201 * Host/native/target split
7203 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
7204 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
7205 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
7206 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
7207 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
7209 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
7210 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
7211 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
7212 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
7213 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
7214 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
7215 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
7217 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
7218 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
7219 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
7221 * New hosts supported
7223 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
7224 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7225 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
7227 * New targets supported
7229 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
7230 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
7232 * New native hosts supported
7234 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
7235 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
7236 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
7238 * New file formats supported
7240 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
7241 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
7242 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
7246 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
7247 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
7248 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
7250 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
7252 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
7253 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
7254 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
7255 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
7259 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
7260 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
7261 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
7263 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
7267 The crash that occurred when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
7268 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
7271 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
7272 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
7274 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
7275 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
7276 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
7277 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
7278 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
7279 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
7281 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
7282 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
7283 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
7284 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
7288 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
7289 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
7290 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
7291 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
7292 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
7294 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
7295 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
7296 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
7297 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
7301 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
7302 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
7303 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
7304 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
7305 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
7306 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
7307 each instruction being stepped through.
7309 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
7310 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
7312 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
7313 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
7314 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
7315 processor with a serial port.
7319 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
7320 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
7321 supported, and what files each one uses.
7325 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
7326 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
7327 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
7328 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
7330 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
7331 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
7332 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
7333 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
7337 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
7338 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
7339 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
7340 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
7341 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
7342 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
7344 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
7347 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
7349 * Better support for C++ function names
7351 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
7352 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
7353 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
7354 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
7355 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
7357 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
7358 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
7359 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
7360 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
7361 for the list of formats.
7363 * G++ symbol mangling problem
7365 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
7366 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
7367 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
7368 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compiling gdb/symtab.c. The
7369 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
7370 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
7373 * New 'maintenance' command
7375 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
7376 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
7377 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
7379 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
7380 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
7381 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
7382 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
7383 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
7384 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
7386 The following commands are new:
7388 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
7389 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
7390 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
7392 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
7394 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
7395 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
7396 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
7397 read after argv processing.
7399 * New hosts supported
7401 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
7403 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
7405 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
7406 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
7407 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
7408 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
7409 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
7412 * New targets supported
7414 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
7416 * More smarts about finding #include files
7418 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
7419 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
7420 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
7421 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
7422 the one that contains your sources.
7424 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
7425 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
7426 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
7428 * Interesting infernals change
7430 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
7431 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
7432 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
7433 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
7435 * Bug fixes (of course!)
7437 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
7438 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
7439 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
7441 See the ChangeLog for details.
7443 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
7445 * New machines supported (host and target)
7447 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
7449 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
7451 * New malloc package
7453 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
7454 Mmalloc is capable of handling multiple heaps of memory. It is also
7455 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
7456 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
7457 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
7458 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
7462 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
7463 'help info proc' for details.
7465 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
7467 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
7468 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
7471 * File name changes for MS-DOS
7473 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
7474 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
7475 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
7476 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
7477 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
7478 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
7480 * Cross byte order fixes
7482 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
7483 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
7485 * New -mapped and -readnow options
7487 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
7488 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
7489 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
7490 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
7491 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
7492 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
7493 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
7494 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
7495 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
7496 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
7498 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
7499 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
7500 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
7501 slower, but makes future operations faster.
7503 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
7504 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
7505 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
7508 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
7510 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
7511 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
7512 shared across multiple host platforms.
7514 * longjmp() handling
7516 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
7517 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
7518 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
7519 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
7523 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
7524 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
7529 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
7530 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
7531 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
7533 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
7535 * New machines supported (host and target)
7537 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7539 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
7540 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
7542 * New machines supported (target)
7544 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
7548 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
7549 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
7550 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
7552 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
7553 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
7554 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
7555 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
7556 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
7559 * New features for SVR4
7561 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
7562 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
7563 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
7565 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
7566 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
7567 it prints the address mappings of the process.
7569 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
7570 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
7572 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
7574 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
7575 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
7576 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
7577 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
7578 same code linked statically.
7582 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
7583 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
7584 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
7585 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
7586 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
7587 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
7591 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7592 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7593 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7596 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
7598 * New machines supported (host and target)
7600 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
7601 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
7602 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
7604 * Almost SCO Unix support
7606 We had hoped to support:
7607 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
7608 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
7609 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
7610 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
7612 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
7614 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
7615 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
7616 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
7617 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
7622 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
7623 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
7624 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
7628 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
7629 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
7630 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
7632 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
7634 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
7635 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
7636 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
7638 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
7639 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
7640 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
7641 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
7644 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
7645 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
7646 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
7647 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
7650 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
7651 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
7654 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
7655 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
7656 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
7659 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
7661 * Improved configuration
7663 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
7664 Porting BFD is simpler.
7668 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
7669 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
7670 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
7671 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
7675 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
7677 * New host supported (not target)
7679 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
7682 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
7684 * Multiple source language support
7686 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
7687 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
7688 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
7689 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
7690 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
7691 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
7695 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
7696 currently under development at the State University of New York at
7697 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
7698 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
7700 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
7701 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
7702 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
7704 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
7705 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
7709 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
7710 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
7711 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
7712 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
7715 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
7717 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
7718 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
7719 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
7720 examining core files.
7724 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
7727 * New machines supported (host and target)
7729 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
7730 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
7731 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
7733 * New hosts supported (not targets)
7735 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
7737 * New targets supported (not hosts)
7739 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
7740 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
7741 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
7743 * New remote interfaces
7749 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
7753 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
7755 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
7756 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
7757 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
7758 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
7759 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
7760 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
7761 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
7762 stub on the target system.
7764 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
7766 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
7767 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
7768 object file types such as a.out and coff.
7770 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
7771 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
7774 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
7776 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
7777 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
7779 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
7780 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
7781 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
7783 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
7784 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
7785 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
7786 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
7788 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
7789 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
7790 it is already running. Default is ON.
7792 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
7793 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
7794 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
7795 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
7798 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
7799 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
7800 or the value of the environment variable
7803 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
7804 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
7807 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
7808 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
7809 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
7811 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
7812 history expansion will be performed on
7813 command line input. The default is OFF.
7815 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
7816 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
7817 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
7819 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
7820 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
7821 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7824 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
7825 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
7826 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
7829 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
7830 ``set width'' instead.
7832 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
7833 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
7834 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
7835 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
7837 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
7840 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
7843 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
7846 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
7849 * Support for Epoch Environment.
7851 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
7852 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
7853 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
7857 * Support for Shared Libraries
7859 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
7860 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
7861 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
7862 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
7863 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
7864 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
7865 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
7866 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
7868 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
7869 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
7870 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
7872 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
7877 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
7878 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
7879 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
7880 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
7881 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
7882 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
7884 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
7886 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
7888 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7889 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7890 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
7893 * C++ multiple inheritance
7895 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
7898 * C++ exception handling
7900 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
7901 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
7902 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
7905 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
7906 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
7907 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
7909 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
7910 current stack frame.
7913 * Minor command changes
7915 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
7916 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
7917 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
7919 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
7920 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
7921 frames without printing.
7923 * New directory command
7925 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
7926 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
7927 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
7928 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
7929 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
7931 * Configuring GDB for compilation
7933 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
7936 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
7937 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
7938 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
7939 where the program that you are debugging will run.