1 What has changed in GDB?
2 (Organized release by release)
4 *** Changes since GDB 7.7
8 GDB now has support for scripting using Guile. Whether this is
9 available is determined at configure time.
10 Guile version 2.0 or greater is required.
11 Guile version 2.0.9 is well tested, earlier 2.0 versions are not.
13 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
17 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Guile interpreter.
21 Start a Guile interactive prompt (or "repl" for "read-eval-print loop").
23 info auto-load guile-scripts [regexp]
24 Print the list of automatically loaded Guile scripts.
26 * The source command is now capable of sourcing Guile scripts.
27 This feature is dependent on the debugger being built with Guile support.
31 set guile print-stack (none|message|full)
32 show guile print-stack
33 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Guile script.
35 set auto-load guile-scripts (on|off)
36 show auto-load guile-scripts
37 Control auto-loading of Guile script files.
39 maint ada set ignore-descriptive-types (on|off)
40 maint ada show ignore-descriptive-types
41 Control whether the debugger should ignore descriptive types in Ada
42 programs. The default is not to ignore the descriptive types. See
43 the user manual for more details on descriptive types and the intended
46 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
48 ** New option --debug-format=option1[,option2,...] allows one to add
49 additional text to each output. At present only timestamps
50 are supported: --debug-format=timestamps.
51 Timestamps can also be turned on with the
52 "monitor set debug-format timestamps" command from GDB.
54 * The 'record instruction-history' command now starts counting instructions
55 at one. This also affects the instruction ranges reported by the
56 'record function-call-history' command when given the /i modifier.
58 * The command 'record function-call-history' supports a new modifier '/c' to
59 indent the function names based on their call stack depth.
60 The fields for the '/i' and '/l' modifier have been reordered.
61 The source line range is now prefixed with 'at'.
62 The instruction range is now prefixed with 'inst'.
63 Both ranges are now printed as '<from>, <to>' to allow copy&paste to the
64 "record instruction-history" and "list" commands.
66 * The ranges given as arguments to the 'record function-call-history' and
67 'record instruction-history' commands are now inclusive.
69 * The btrace record target now supports the 'record goto' command.
70 For locations inside the execution trace, the back trace is computed
71 based on the information stored in the execution trace.
73 * The btrace record target supports limited reverse execution and replay.
74 The target does not record data and therefore does not allow reading
77 * The "catch syscall" command now works on s390*-linux* targets.
81 qXfer:btrace:read's annex
82 The qXfer:btrace:read packet supports a new annex 'delta' to read
83 branch trace incrementally.
87 ** Valid Python operations on gdb.Value objects representing
88 structs/classes invoke the corresponding overloaded operators if
92 PowerPC64 GNU/Linux little-endian powerpc64le-*-linux*
94 * The "dll-symbols" command, and its two aliases ("add-shared-symbol-files"
95 and "assf"), have been deprecated. Use the "sharedlibrary" command, or
96 its alias "share", instead.
98 *** Changes in GDB 7.7
100 * Improved support for process record-replay and reverse debugging on
101 arm*-linux* targets. Support for thumb32 and syscall instruction
102 recording has been added.
104 * GDB now supports SystemTap SDT probes on AArch64 GNU/Linux.
106 * GDB now supports Fission DWP file format version 2.
107 http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission
109 * New convenience function "$_isvoid", to check whether an expression
110 is void. A void expression is an expression where the type of the
111 result is "void". For example, some convenience variables may be
112 "void" when evaluated (e.g., "$_exitcode" before the execution of
113 the program being debugged; or an undefined convenience variable).
114 Another example, when calling a function whose return type is
117 * The "maintenance print objfiles" command now takes an optional regexp.
119 * The "catch syscall" command now works on arm*-linux* targets.
121 * GDB now consistently shows "<not saved>" when printing values of
122 registers the debug info indicates have not been saved in the frame
123 and there's nowhere to retrieve them from
124 (callee-saved/call-clobbered registers):
129 (gdb) info registers rax
132 Before, the former would print "<optimized out>", and the latter
133 "*value not available*".
135 * New script contrib/gdb-add-index.sh for adding .gdb_index sections
140 ** Frame filters and frame decorators have been added.
141 ** Temporary breakpoints are now supported.
142 ** Line tables representation has been added.
143 ** New attribute 'parent_type' for gdb.Field objects.
144 ** gdb.Field objects can be used as subscripts on gdb.Value objects.
145 ** New attribute 'name' for gdb.Type objects.
149 Nios II ELF nios2*-*-elf
150 Nios II GNU/Linux nios2*-*-linux
151 Texas Instruments MSP430 msp430*-*-elf
153 * Removed native configurations
155 Support for these a.out NetBSD and OpenBSD obsolete configurations has
156 been removed. ELF variants of these configurations are kept supported.
158 arm*-*-netbsd* but arm*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
159 i[34567]86-*-netbsd* but i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
160 i[34567]86-*-openbsd[0-2].* but i[34567]86-*-openbsd* is kept supported.
161 i[34567]86-*-openbsd3.[0-3]
162 m68*-*-netbsd* but m68*-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
163 sparc-*-netbsd* but sparc-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
164 vax-*-netbsd* but vax-*-netbsdelf* is kept supported.
168 Like "catch throw", but catches a re-thrown exception.
170 Renamed from old "maint check-symtabs".
172 Perform consistency checks on symtabs.
174 Expand symtabs matching an optional regexp.
177 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
179 maint set|show per-command
180 maint set|show per-command space
181 maint set|show per-command time
182 maint set|show per-command symtab
183 Enable display of per-command gdb resource usage.
185 remove-symbol-file FILENAME
186 remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS
187 Remove a symbol file added via add-symbol-file. The file to remove
188 can be identified by its filename or by an address that lies within
189 the boundaries of this symbol file in memory.
192 info exceptions REGEXP
193 Display the list of Ada exceptions defined in the program being
194 debugged. If provided, only the exceptions whose names match REGEXP
199 set debug symfile off|on
201 Control display of debugging info regarding reading symbol files and
202 symbol tables within those files
204 set print raw frame-arguments
205 show print raw frame-arguments
206 Set/show whether to print frame arguments in raw mode,
207 disregarding any defined pretty-printers.
209 set remote trace-status-packet
210 show remote trace-status-packet
211 Set/show the use of remote protocol qTStatus packet.
215 Control display of debugging messages related to Nios II targets.
219 Control whether target-assisted range stepping is enabled.
221 set startup-with-shell
222 show startup-with-shell
223 Specifies whether Unix child processes are started via a shell or
228 Use the target memory cache for accesses to the code segment. This
229 improves performance of remote debugging (particularly disassembly).
231 * You can now use a literal value 'unlimited' for options that
232 interpret 0 or -1 as meaning "unlimited". E.g., "set
233 trace-buffer-size unlimited" is now an alias for "set
234 trace-buffer-size -1" and "set height unlimited" is now an alias for
237 * The "set debug symtab-create" debugging option of GDB has been changed to
238 accept a verbosity level. 0 means "off", 1 provides basic debugging
239 output, and values of 2 or greater provides more verbose output.
241 * New command-line options
243 Display the details of GDB configure-time options.
245 * The command 'tsave' can now support new option '-ctf' to save trace
246 buffer in Common Trace Format.
248 * Newly installed $prefix/bin/gcore acts as a shell interface for the
251 * GDB now implements the the C++ 'typeid' operator.
253 * The new convenience variable $_exception holds the exception being
254 thrown or caught at an exception-related catchpoint.
256 * The exception-related catchpoints, like "catch throw", now accept a
257 regular expression which can be used to filter exceptions by type.
259 * The new convenience variable $_exitsignal is automatically set to
260 the terminating signal number when the program being debugged dies
261 due to an uncaught signal.
265 ** All MI commands now accept an optional "--language" option.
266 Support for this feature can be verified by using the "-list-features"
267 command, which should contain "language-option".
269 ** The new command -info-gdb-mi-command allows the user to determine
270 whether a GDB/MI command is supported or not.
272 ** The "^error" result record returned when trying to execute an undefined
273 GDB/MI command now provides a variable named "code" whose content is the
274 "undefined-command" error code. Support for this feature can be verified
275 by using the "-list-features" command, which should contain
276 "undefined-command-error-code".
278 ** The -trace-save MI command can optionally save trace buffer in Common
281 ** The new command -dprintf-insert sets a dynamic printf breakpoint.
283 ** The command -data-list-register-values now accepts an optional
284 "--skip-unavailable" option. When used, only the available registers
287 ** The new command -trace-frame-collected dumps collected variables,
288 computed expressions, tvars, memory and registers in a traceframe.
290 ** The commands -stack-list-locals, -stack-list-arguments and
291 -stack-list-variables now accept an option "--skip-unavailable".
292 When used, only the available locals or arguments are displayed.
294 ** The -exec-run command now accepts an optional "--start" option.
295 When used, the command follows the same semantics as the "start"
296 command, stopping the program's execution at the start of its
297 main subprogram. Support for this feature can be verified using
298 the "-list-features" command, which should contain
299 "exec-run-start-option".
301 ** The new commands -catch-assert and -catch-exceptions insert
302 catchpoints stopping the program when Ada exceptions are raised.
304 ** The new command -info-ada-exceptions provides the equivalent of
305 the new "info exceptions" command.
307 * New system-wide configuration scripts
308 A GDB installation now provides scripts suitable for use as system-wide
309 configuration scripts for the following systems:
313 * GDB now supports target-assigned range stepping with remote targets.
314 This improves the performance of stepping source lines by reducing
315 the number of control packets from/to GDB. See "New remote packets"
318 * GDB now understands the element 'tvar' in the XML traceframe info.
319 It has the id of the collected trace state variables.
321 * On S/390 targets that provide the transactional-execution feature,
322 the program interruption transaction diagnostic block (TDB) is now
323 represented as a number of additional "registers" in GDB.
329 The vCont packet supports a new 'r' action, that tells the remote
330 stub to step through an address range itself, without GDB
331 involvemement at each single-step.
333 qXfer:libraries-svr4:read's annex
334 The previously unused annex of the qXfer:libraries-svr4:read packet
335 is now used to support passing an argument list. The remote stub
336 reports support for this argument list to GDB's qSupported query.
337 The defined arguments are "start" and "prev", used to reduce work
338 necessary for library list updating, resulting in significant
341 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
343 ** GDBserver now supports target-assisted range stepping. Currently
344 enabled on x86/x86_64 GNU/Linux targets.
346 ** GDBserver now adds element 'tvar' in the XML in the reply to
347 'qXfer:traceframe-info:read'. It has the id of the collected
348 trace state variables.
350 ** GDBserver now supports hardware watchpoints on the MIPS GNU/Linux
353 * New 'z' formatter for printing and examining memory, this displays the
354 value as hexadecimal zero padded on the left to the size of the type.
356 * GDB can now use Windows x64 unwinding data.
358 * The "set remotebaud" command has been replaced by "set serial baud".
359 Similarly, "show remotebaud" has been replaced by "show serial baud".
360 The "set remotebaud" and "show remotebaud" commands are still available
361 to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
363 *** Changes in GDB 7.6
365 * Target record has been renamed to record-full.
366 Record/replay is now enabled with the "record full" command.
367 This also affects settings that are associated with full record/replay
368 that have been moved from "set/show record" to "set/show record full":
370 set|show record full insn-number-max
371 set|show record full stop-at-limit
372 set|show record full memory-query
374 * A new record target "record-btrace" has been added. The new target
375 uses hardware support to record the control-flow of a process. It
376 does not support replaying the execution, but it implements the
377 below new commands for investigating the recorded execution log.
378 This new recording method can be enabled using:
382 The "record-btrace" target is only available on Intel Atom processors
383 and requires a Linux kernel 2.6.32 or later.
385 * Two new commands have been added for record/replay to give information
386 about the recorded execution without having to replay the execution.
387 The commands are only supported by "record btrace".
389 record instruction-history prints the execution history at
390 instruction granularity
392 record function-call-history prints the execution history at
395 * New native configurations
397 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux-gnu
398 FreeBSD/powerpc powerpc*-*-freebsd
399 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
400 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux-gnu
404 ARM AArch64 aarch64*-*-elf
405 ARM AArch64 GNU/Linux aarch64*-*-linux
406 Lynx 178 PowerPC powerpc-*-lynx*178
407 x86_64/Cygwin x86_64-*-cygwin*
408 Tilera TILE-Gx GNU/Linux tilegx*-*-linux
410 * If the configured location of system.gdbinit file (as given by the
411 --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the
412 data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure
413 time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the
414 system-wide init file in the directory specified by the
415 --data-directory command-line option.
417 * New command line options:
419 -nh Disables auto-loading of ~/.gdbinit, but still executes all the
420 other initialization files, unlike -nx which disables all of them.
422 * Removed command line options
424 -epoch This was used by the gdb mode in Epoch, an ancient fork of
427 * The 'ptype' and 'whatis' commands now accept an argument to control
430 * 'info proc' now works on some core files.
434 ** Vectors can be created with gdb.Type.vector.
436 ** Python's atexit.register now works in GDB.
438 ** Types can be pretty-printed via a Python API.
440 ** Python 3 is now supported (in addition to Python 2.4 or later)
442 ** New class gdb.Architecture exposes GDB's internal representation
443 of architecture in the Python API.
445 ** New method Frame.architecture returns the gdb.Architecture object
446 corresponding to the frame's architecture.
448 * New Python-based convenience functions:
450 ** $_memeq(buf1, buf2, length)
451 ** $_streq(str1, str2)
453 ** $_regex(str, regex)
455 * The 'cd' command now defaults to using '~' (the home directory) if not
458 * The C++ ABI now defaults to the GNU v3 ABI. This has been the
459 default for GCC since November 2000.
461 * The command 'forward-search' can now be abbreviated as 'fo'.
463 * The command 'info tracepoints' can now display 'installed on target'
464 or 'not installed on target' for each non-pending location of tracepoint.
466 * New configure options
468 --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck
469 By default, development versions are built with -lmcheck on hosts
470 that support it, in order to help track memory corruption issues.
471 Release versions, on the other hand, are built without -lmcheck
472 by default. The --enable-libmcheck/--disable-libmcheck configure
473 options allow the user to override that default.
474 --with-babeltrace/--with-babeltrace-include/--with-babeltrace-lib
475 This configure option allows the user to build GDB with
476 libbabeltrace using which GDB can read Common Trace Format data.
478 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
481 Catch signals. This is similar to "handle", but allows commands and
482 conditions to be attached.
485 List the BFDs known to GDB.
487 python-interactive [command]
489 Start a Python interactive prompt, or evaluate the optional command
490 and print the result of expressions.
493 "py" is a new alias for "python".
495 enable type-printer [name]...
496 disable type-printer [name]...
497 Enable or disable type printers.
501 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been removed
502 (has been deprecated in GDB 7.5), and "info all-registers" should be used
507 set print type methods (on|off)
508 show print type methods
509 Control whether method declarations are displayed by "ptype".
510 The default is to show them.
512 set print type typedefs (on|off)
513 show print type typedefs
514 Control whether typedef definitions are displayed by "ptype".
515 The default is to show them.
517 set filename-display basename|relative|absolute
518 show filename-display
519 Control the way in which filenames is displayed.
520 The default is "relative", which preserves previous behavior.
522 set trace-buffer-size
523 show trace-buffer-size
524 Request target to change the size of trace buffer.
526 set remote trace-buffer-size-packet auto|on|off
527 show remote trace-buffer-size-packet
528 Control the use of the remote protocol `QTBuffer:size' packet.
532 Control display of debugging messages related to ARM AArch64.
535 set debug coff-pe-read
536 show debug coff-pe-read
537 Control display of debugging messages related to reading of COFF/PE
542 Control display of debugging messages related to Mach-O symbols
545 set debug notification
546 show debug notification
547 Control display of debugging info for async remote notification.
551 ** Command parameter changes are now notified using new async record
552 "=cmd-param-changed".
553 ** Trace frame changes caused by command "tfind" are now notified using
554 new async record "=traceframe-changed".
555 ** The creation, deletion and modification of trace state variables
556 are now notified using new async records "=tsv-created",
557 "=tsv-deleted" and "=tsv-modified".
558 ** The start and stop of process record are now notified using new
559 async record "=record-started" and "=record-stopped".
560 ** Memory changes are now notified using new async record
562 ** The data-disassemble command response will include a "fullname" field
563 containing the absolute file name when source has been requested.
564 ** New optional parameter COUNT added to the "-data-write-memory-bytes"
565 command, to allow pattern filling of memory areas.
566 ** New commands "-catch-load"/"-catch-unload" added for intercepting
567 library load/unload events.
568 ** The response to breakpoint commands and breakpoint async records
569 includes an "installed" field containing a boolean state about each
570 non-pending tracepoint location is whether installed on target or not.
571 ** Output of the "-trace-status" command includes a "trace-file" field
572 containing the name of the trace file being examined. This field is
573 optional, and only present when examining a trace file.
574 ** The "fullname" field is now always present along with the "file" field,
575 even if the file cannot be found by GDB.
577 * GDB now supports the "mini debuginfo" section, .gnu_debugdata.
578 You must have the LZMA library available when configuring GDB for this
579 feature to be enabled. For more information, see:
580 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/MiniDebugInfo
585 Set the size of trace buffer. The remote stub reports support for this
586 packet to gdb's qSupported query.
589 Enable Branch Trace Store (BTS)-based branch tracing for the current
590 thread. The remote stub reports support for this packet to gdb's
594 Disable branch tracing for the current thread. The remote stub reports
595 support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
598 Read the traced branches for the current thread. The remote stub
599 reports support for this packet to gdb's qSupported query.
601 *** Changes in GDB 7.5
603 * GDB now supports x32 ABI. Visit <http://sites.google.com/site/x32abi/>
604 for more x32 ABI info.
606 * GDB now supports access to MIPS DSP registers on Linux targets.
608 * GDB now supports debugging microMIPS binaries.
610 * The "info os" command on GNU/Linux can now display information on
611 several new classes of objects managed by the operating system:
612 "info os procgroups" lists process groups
613 "info os files" lists file descriptors
614 "info os sockets" lists internet-domain sockets
615 "info os shm" lists shared-memory regions
616 "info os semaphores" lists semaphores
617 "info os msg" lists message queues
618 "info os modules" lists loaded kernel modules
620 * GDB now has support for SDT (Static Defined Tracing) probes. Currently,
621 the only implemented backend is for SystemTap probes (<sys/sdt.h>). You
622 can set a breakpoint using the new "-probe, "-pstap" or "-probe-stap"
623 options and inspect the probe arguments using the new $_probe_arg family
624 of convenience variables. You can obtain more information about SystemTap
625 in <http://sourceware.org/systemtap/>.
627 * GDB now supports reversible debugging on ARM, it allows you to
628 debug basic ARM and THUMB instructions, and provides
629 record/replay support.
631 * The option "symbol-reloading" has been deleted as it is no longer used.
635 ** GDB commands implemented in Python can now be put in command class
638 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" is now deleted.
640 ** A new class, gdb.printing.FlagEnumerationPrinter, can be used to
641 apply "flag enum"-style pretty-printing to any enum.
643 ** gdb.lookup_symbol can now work when there is no current frame.
645 ** gdb.Symbol now has a 'line' attribute, holding the line number in
646 the source at which the symbol was defined.
648 ** gdb.Symbol now has the new attribute 'needs_frame' and the new
649 method 'value'. The former indicates whether the symbol needs a
650 frame in order to compute its value, and the latter computes the
653 ** A new method 'referenced_value' on gdb.Value objects which can
654 dereference pointer as well as C++ reference values.
656 ** New methods 'global_block' and 'static_block' on gdb.Symtab objects
657 which return the global and static blocks (as gdb.Block objects),
658 of the underlying symbol table, respectively.
660 ** New function gdb.find_pc_line which returns the gdb.Symtab_and_line
661 object associated with a PC value.
663 ** gdb.Symtab_and_line has new attribute 'last' which holds the end
664 of the address range occupied by code for the current source line.
666 * Go language support.
667 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the Go programming
670 * GDBserver now supports stdio connections.
671 E.g. (gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello
673 * The binary "gdbtui" can no longer be built or installed.
674 Use "gdb -tui" instead.
676 * GDB will now print "flag" enums specially. A flag enum is one where
677 all the enumerator values have no bits in common when pairwise
678 "and"ed. When printing a value whose type is a flag enum, GDB will
679 show all the constants, e.g., for enum E { ONE = 1, TWO = 2}:
680 (gdb) print (enum E) 3
683 * The filename part of a linespec will now match trailing components
684 of a source file name. For example, "break gcc/expr.c:1000" will
685 now set a breakpoint in build/gcc/expr.c, but not
688 * The "info proc" and "generate-core-file" commands will now also
689 work on remote targets connected to GDBserver on Linux.
691 * The command "info catch" has been removed. It has been disabled
694 * The "catch exception" and "catch assert" commands now accept
695 a condition at the end of the command, much like the "break"
696 command does. For instance:
698 (gdb) catch exception Constraint_Error if Barrier = True
700 Previously, it was possible to add a condition to such catchpoints,
701 but it had to be done as a second step, after the catchpoint had been
702 created, using the "condition" command.
704 * The "info static-tracepoint-marker" command will now also work on
705 native Linux targets with in-process agent.
707 * GDB can now set breakpoints on inlined functions.
709 * The .gdb_index section has been updated to include symbols for
710 inlined functions. GDB will ignore older .gdb_index sections by
711 default, which could cause symbol files to be loaded more slowly
712 until their .gdb_index sections can be recreated. The new command
713 "set use-deprecated-index-sections on" will cause GDB to use any older
714 .gdb_index sections it finds. This will restore performance, but the
715 ability to set breakpoints on inlined functions will be lost in symbol
716 files with older .gdb_index sections.
718 The .gdb_index section has also been updated to record more information
719 about each symbol. This speeds up the "info variables", "info functions"
720 and "info types" commands when used with programs having the .gdb_index
721 section, as well as speeding up debugging with shared libraries using
722 the .gdb_index section.
724 * Ada support for GDB/MI Variable Objects has been added.
726 * GDB can now support 'breakpoint always-inserted mode' in 'record'
731 ** New command -info-os is the MI equivalent of "info os".
733 ** Output logs ("set logging" and related) now include MI output.
737 ** "set use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
738 "show use-deprecated-index-sections on|off"
739 Controls the use of deprecated .gdb_index sections.
741 ** "catch load" and "catch unload" can be used to stop when a shared
742 library is loaded or unloaded, respectively.
744 ** "enable count" can be used to auto-disable a breakpoint after
747 ** "info vtbl" can be used to show the virtual method tables for
748 C++ and Java objects.
750 ** "explore" and its sub commands "explore value" and "explore type"
751 can be used to recursively explore values and types of
752 expressions. These commands are available only if GDB is
753 configured with '--with-python'.
755 ** "info auto-load" shows status of all kinds of auto-loaded files,
756 "info auto-load gdb-scripts" shows status of auto-loading GDB canned
757 sequences of commands files, "info auto-load python-scripts"
758 shows status of auto-loading Python script files,
759 "info auto-load local-gdbinit" shows status of loading init file
760 (.gdbinit) from current directory and "info auto-load libthread-db" shows
761 status of inferior specific thread debugging shared library loading.
763 ** "info auto-load-scripts", "set auto-load-scripts on|off"
764 and "show auto-load-scripts" commands have been deprecated, use their
765 "info auto-load python-scripts", "set auto-load python-scripts on|off"
766 and "show auto-load python-scripts" counterparts instead.
768 ** "dprintf location,format,args..." creates a dynamic printf, which
769 is basically a breakpoint that does a printf and immediately
770 resumes your program's execution, so it is like a printf that you
771 can insert dynamically at runtime instead of at compiletime.
773 ** "set print symbol"
775 Controls whether GDB attempts to display the symbol, if any,
776 corresponding to addresses it prints. This defaults to "on", but
777 you can set it to "off" to restore GDB's previous behavior.
779 * Deprecated commands
781 ** For the Renesas Super-H architecture, the "regs" command has been
782 deprecated, and "info all-registers" should be used instead.
786 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
787 HP OpenVMS ia64 ia64-hp-openvms*
789 * GDBserver supports evaluation of breakpoint conditions. When
790 support is advertised by GDBserver, GDB may be told to send the
791 breakpoint conditions in bytecode form to GDBserver. GDBserver
792 will only report the breakpoint trigger to GDB when its condition
798 show mips compression
799 Select the compressed ISA encoding used in functions that have no symbol
800 information available. The encoding can be set to either of:
803 and is updated automatically from ELF file flags if available.
805 set breakpoint condition-evaluation
806 show breakpoint condition-evaluation
807 Control whether breakpoint conditions are evaluated by GDB ("host") or by
808 GDBserver ("target"). Default option "auto" chooses the most efficient
810 This option can improve debugger efficiency depending on the speed of the
814 Disable auto-loading globally.
817 Show auto-loading setting of all kinds of auto-loaded files.
819 set auto-load gdb-scripts on|off
820 show auto-load gdb-scripts
821 Control auto-loading of GDB canned sequences of commands files.
823 set auto-load python-scripts on|off
824 show auto-load python-scripts
825 Control auto-loading of Python script files.
827 set auto-load local-gdbinit on|off
828 show auto-load local-gdbinit
829 Control loading of init file (.gdbinit) from current directory.
831 set auto-load libthread-db on|off
832 show auto-load libthread-db
833 Control auto-loading of inferior specific thread debugging shared library.
835 set auto-load scripts-directory <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
836 show auto-load scripts-directory
837 Set a list of directories from which to load auto-loaded scripts.
838 Automatically loaded Python scripts and GDB scripts are located in one
839 of the directories listed by this option.
840 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
842 set auto-load safe-path <dir1>[:<dir2>...]
843 show auto-load safe-path
844 Set a list of directories from which it is safe to auto-load files.
845 The delimiter (':' above) may differ according to the host platform.
847 set debug auto-load on|off
849 Control display of debugging info for auto-loading the files above.
851 set dprintf-style gdb|call|agent
853 Control the way in which a dynamic printf is performed; "gdb"
854 requests a GDB printf command, while "call" causes dprintf to call a
855 function in the inferior. "agent" requests that the target agent
856 (such as GDBserver) do the printing.
858 set dprintf-function <expr>
859 show dprintf-function
860 set dprintf-channel <expr>
862 Set the function and optional first argument to the call when using
863 the "call" style of dynamic printf.
865 set disconnected-dprintf on|off
866 show disconnected-dprintf
867 Control whether agent-style dynamic printfs continue to be in effect
868 after GDB disconnects.
870 * New configure options
873 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load scripts-directory'
874 setting above. It defaults to '$debugdir:$datadir/auto-load',
875 $debugdir representing global debugging info directories (available
876 via 'show debug-file-directory') and $datadir representing GDB's data
877 directory (available via 'show data-directory').
879 --with-auto-load-safe-path
880 Configure default value for the 'set auto-load safe-path' setting
881 above. It defaults to the --with-auto-load-dir setting.
883 --without-auto-load-safe-path
884 Set 'set auto-load safe-path' to '/', effectively disabling this
889 z0/z1 conditional breakpoints extension
891 The z0/z1 breakpoint insertion packets have been extended to carry
892 a list of conditional expressions over to the remote stub depending on the
893 condition evaluation mode. The use of this extension can be controlled
894 via the "set remote conditional-breakpoints-packet" command.
898 Specify the signals which the remote stub may pass to the debugged
899 program without GDB involvement.
901 * New command line options
903 --init-command=FILE, -ix Like --command, -x but execute it
904 before loading inferior.
905 --init-eval-command=COMMAND, -iex Like --eval-command=COMMAND, -ex but
906 execute it before loading inferior.
908 *** Changes in GDB 7.4
910 * GDB now handles ambiguous linespecs more consistently; the existing
911 FILE:LINE support has been expanded to other types of linespecs. A
912 breakpoint will now be set on all matching locations in all
913 inferiors, and locations will be added or removed according to
916 * GDB now allows you to skip uninteresting functions and files when
917 stepping with the "skip function" and "skip file" commands.
919 * GDB has two new commands: "set remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit"
920 and "show remote hardware-watchpoint-length-limit". These allows to
921 set or show the maximum length limit (in bytes) of a remote
922 target hardware watchpoint.
924 This allows e.g. to use "unlimited" hardware watchpoints with the
925 gdbserver integrated in Valgrind version >= 3.7.0. Such Valgrind
926 watchpoints are slower than real hardware watchpoints but are
927 significantly faster than gdb software watchpoints.
931 ** The register_pretty_printer function in module gdb.printing now takes
932 an optional `replace' argument. If True, the new printer replaces any
935 ** The "maint set python print-stack on|off" command has been
936 deprecated and will be deleted in GDB 7.5.
937 A new command: "set python print-stack none|full|message" has
938 replaced it. Additionally, the default for "print-stack" is
939 now "message", which just prints the error message without
942 ** A prompt substitution hook (prompt_hook) is now available to the
945 ** A new Python module, gdb.prompt has been added to the GDB Python
946 modules library. This module provides functionality for
947 escape sequences in prompts (used by set/show
948 extended-prompt). These escape sequences are replaced by their
951 ** Python commands and convenience-functions located in
952 'data-directory'/python/gdb/command and
953 'data-directory'/python/gdb/function are now automatically loaded
956 ** Blocks now provide four new attributes. global_block and
957 static_block will return the global and static blocks
958 respectively. is_static and is_global are boolean attributes
959 that indicate if the block is one of those two types.
961 ** Symbols now provide the "type" attribute, the type of the symbol.
963 ** The "gdb.breakpoint" function has been deprecated in favor of
966 ** A new class "gdb.FinishBreakpoint" is provided to catch the return
967 of a function. This class is based on the "finish" command
968 available in the CLI.
970 ** Type objects for struct and union types now allow access to
971 the fields using standard Python dictionary (mapping) methods.
972 For example, "some_type['myfield']" now works, as does
975 ** A new event "gdb.new_objfile" has been added, triggered by loading a
978 ** A new function, "deep_items" has been added to the gdb.types
979 module in the GDB Python modules library. This function returns
980 an iterator over the fields of a struct or union type. Unlike
981 the standard Python "iteritems" method, it will recursively traverse
982 any anonymous fields.
986 ** "*stopped" events can report several new "reason"s, such as
989 ** Breakpoint changes are now notified using new async records, like
990 "=breakpoint-modified".
992 ** New command -ada-task-info.
994 * libthread-db-search-path now supports two special values: $sdir and $pdir.
995 $sdir specifies the default system locations of shared libraries.
996 $pdir specifies the directory where the libpthread used by the application
999 GDB no longer looks in $sdir and $pdir after it has searched the directories
1000 mentioned in libthread-db-search-path. If you want to search those
1001 directories, they must be specified in libthread-db-search-path.
1002 The default value of libthread-db-search-path on GNU/Linux and Solaris
1003 systems is now "$sdir:$pdir".
1005 $pdir is not supported by gdbserver, it is currently ignored.
1006 $sdir is supported by gdbserver.
1008 * New configure option --with-iconv-bin.
1009 When using the internationalization support like the one in the GNU C
1010 library, GDB will invoke the "iconv" program to get a list of supported
1011 character sets. If this program lives in a non-standard location, one can
1012 use this option to specify where to find it.
1014 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1015 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports masked hardware
1016 watchpoints, which specify a mask in addition to an address to watch.
1017 The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are
1018 reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed
1019 by the inferior against the watchpoint address. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1020 section in the user manual for more details.
1022 * The new option --once causes GDBserver to stop listening for connections once
1023 the first connection is made. The listening port used by GDBserver will
1024 become available after that.
1026 * New commands "info macros" and "alias" have been added.
1028 * New function parameters suffix @entry specifies value of function parameter
1029 at the time the function got called. Entry values are available only since
1035 "!" is now an alias of the "shell" command.
1036 Note that no space is needed between "!" and SHELL COMMAND.
1040 watch EXPRESSION mask MASK_VALUE
1041 The watch command now supports the mask argument which allows creation
1042 of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature.
1044 info auto-load-scripts [REGEXP]
1045 This command was formerly named "maintenance print section-scripts".
1046 It is now generally useful and is no longer a maintenance-only command.
1048 info macro [-all] [--] MACRO
1049 The info macro command has new options `-all' and `--'. The first for
1050 printing all definitions of a macro. The second for explicitly specifying
1051 the end of arguments and the beginning of the macro name in case the macro
1052 name starts with a hyphen.
1054 collect[/s] EXPRESSIONS
1055 The tracepoint collect command now takes an optional modifier "/s"
1056 that directs it to dereference pointer-to-character types and
1057 collect the bytes of memory up to a zero byte. The behavior is
1058 similar to what you see when you use the regular print command on a
1059 string. An optional integer following the "/s" sets a bound on the
1060 number of bytes that will be collected.
1063 The trace start command now interprets any supplied arguments as a
1064 note to be recorded with the trace run, with an effect similar to
1065 setting the variable trace-notes.
1068 The trace stop command now interprets any arguments as a note to be
1069 mentioned along with the tstatus report that the trace was stopped
1070 with a command. The effect is similar to setting the variable
1073 * Tracepoints can now be enabled and disabled at any time after a trace
1074 experiment has been started using the standard "enable" and "disable"
1075 commands. It is now possible to start a trace experiment with no enabled
1076 tracepoints; GDB will display a warning, but will allow the experiment to
1077 begin, assuming that tracepoints will be enabled as needed while the trace
1080 * Fast tracepoints on 32-bit x86-architectures can now be placed at
1081 locations with 4-byte instructions, when they were previously
1082 limited to locations with instructions of 5 bytes or longer.
1086 set debug dwarf2-read
1087 show debug dwarf2-read
1088 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to reading
1089 DWARF debug info. The default is off.
1091 set debug symtab-create
1092 show debug symtab-create
1093 Turns on or off display of debugging messages related to symbol table
1094 creation. The default is off.
1097 show extended-prompt
1098 Set the GDB prompt, and allow escape sequences to be inserted to
1099 display miscellaneous information (see 'help set extended-prompt'
1100 for the list of sequences). This prompt (and any information
1101 accessed through the escape sequences) is updated every time the
1102 prompt is displayed.
1104 set print entry-values (both|compact|default|if-needed|no|only|preferred)
1105 show print entry-values
1106 Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases
1107 GDB can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the
1108 function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function.
1110 set debug entry-values
1111 show debug entry-values
1112 Control display of debugging info for determining frame argument values at
1113 function entry and virtual tail call frames.
1115 set basenames-may-differ
1116 show basenames-may-differ
1117 Set whether a source file may have multiple base names.
1118 (A "base name" is the name of a file with the directory part removed.
1119 Example: The base name of "/home/user/hello.c" is "hello.c".)
1120 If set, GDB will canonicalize file names (e.g., expand symlinks)
1121 before comparing them. Canonicalization is an expensive operation,
1122 but it allows the same file be known by more than one base name.
1123 If not set (the default), all source files are assumed to have just
1124 one base name, and gdb will do file name comparisons more efficiently.
1130 Set a user name and notes for the current and any future trace runs.
1131 This is useful for long-running and/or disconnected traces, to
1132 inform others (or yourself) as to who is running the trace, supply
1133 contact information, or otherwise explain what is going on.
1135 set trace-stop-notes
1136 show trace-stop-notes
1137 Set a note attached to the trace run, that is displayed when the
1138 trace has been stopped by a tstop command. This is useful for
1139 instance as an explanation, if you are stopping a trace run that was
1140 started by someone else.
1142 * New remote packets
1146 Dynamically enable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1150 Dynamically disable a tracepoint in a started trace experiment.
1154 Set the user and notes of the trace run.
1158 Query the current status of a tracepoint.
1162 Query the minimum length of instruction at which a fast tracepoint may
1165 * Dcache size (number of lines) and line-size are now runtime-configurable
1166 via "set dcache line" and "set dcache line-size" commands.
1170 Texas Instruments TMS320C6x tic6x-*-*
1174 Renesas RL78 rl78-*-elf
1176 *** Changes in GDB 7.3.1
1178 * The build failure for NetBSD and OpenBSD targets have now been fixed.
1180 *** Changes in GDB 7.3
1182 * GDB has a new command: "thread find [REGEXP]".
1183 It finds the thread id whose name, target id, or thread extra info
1184 matches the given regular expression.
1186 * The "catch syscall" command now works on mips*-linux* targets.
1188 * The -data-disassemble MI command now supports modes 2 and 3 for
1189 dumping the instruction opcodes.
1191 * New command line options
1193 -data-directory DIR Specify DIR as the "data-directory".
1194 This is mostly for testing purposes.
1196 * The "maint set python auto-load on|off" command has been renamed to
1197 "set auto-load-scripts on|off".
1199 * GDB has a new command: "set directories".
1200 It is like the "dir" command except that it replaces the
1201 source path list instead of augmenting it.
1203 * GDB now understands thread names.
1205 On GNU/Linux, "info threads" will display the thread name as set by
1206 prctl or pthread_setname_np.
1208 There is also a new command, "thread name", which can be used to
1209 assign a name internally for GDB to display.
1212 Initial support for the OpenCL C language (http://www.khronos.org/opencl)
1213 has been integrated into GDB.
1217 ** The function gdb.Write now accepts an optional keyword 'stream'.
1218 This keyword, when provided, will direct the output to either
1219 stdout, stderr, or GDB's logging output.
1221 ** Parameters can now be be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1222 you may implement the get_set_doc and get_show_doc functions.
1223 This improves how Parameter set/show documentation is processed
1224 and allows for more dynamic content.
1226 ** Symbols, Symbol Table, Symbol Table and Line, Object Files,
1227 Inferior, Inferior Thread, Blocks, and Block Iterator APIs now
1228 have an is_valid method.
1230 ** Breakpoints can now be sub-classed in Python, and in particular
1231 you may implement a 'stop' function that is executed each time
1232 the inferior reaches that breakpoint.
1234 ** New function gdb.lookup_global_symbol looks up a global symbol.
1236 ** GDB values in Python are now callable if the value represents a
1237 function. For example, if 'some_value' represents a function that
1238 takes two integer parameters and returns a value, you can call
1239 that function like so:
1241 result = some_value (10,20)
1243 ** Module gdb.types has been added.
1244 It contains a collection of utilities for working with gdb.Types objects:
1245 get_basic_type, has_field, make_enum_dict.
1247 ** Module gdb.printing has been added.
1248 It contains utilities for writing and registering pretty-printers.
1249 New classes: PrettyPrinter, SubPrettyPrinter,
1250 RegexpCollectionPrettyPrinter.
1251 New function: register_pretty_printer.
1253 ** New commands "info pretty-printers", "enable pretty-printer" and
1254 "disable pretty-printer" have been added.
1256 ** gdb.parameter("directories") is now available.
1258 ** New function gdb.newest_frame returns the newest frame in the
1261 ** The gdb.InferiorThread class has a new "name" attribute. This
1262 holds the thread's name.
1264 ** Python Support for Inferior events.
1265 Python scripts can add observers to be notified of events
1266 occurring in the process being debugged.
1267 The following events are currently supported:
1268 - gdb.events.cont Continue event.
1269 - gdb.events.exited Inferior exited event.
1270 - gdb.events.stop Signal received, and Breakpoint hit events.
1274 ** GDB now puts template parameters in scope when debugging in an
1275 instantiation. For example, if you have:
1277 template<int X> int func (void) { return X; }
1279 then if you step into func<5>, "print X" will show "5". This
1280 feature requires proper debuginfo support from the compiler; it
1281 was added to GCC 4.5.
1283 ** The motion commands "next", "finish", "until", and "advance" now
1284 work better when exceptions are thrown. In particular, GDB will
1285 no longer lose control of the inferior; instead, the GDB will
1286 stop the inferior at the point at which the exception is caught.
1287 This functionality requires a change in the exception handling
1288 code that was introduced in GCC 4.5.
1290 * GDB now follows GCC's rules on accessing volatile objects when
1291 reading or writing target state during expression evaluation.
1292 One notable difference to prior behavior is that "print x = 0"
1293 no longer generates a read of x; the value of the assignment is
1294 now always taken directly from the value being assigned.
1296 * GDB now has some support for using labels in the program's source in
1297 linespecs. For instance, you can use "advance label" to continue
1298 execution to a label.
1300 * GDB now has support for reading and writing a new .gdb_index
1301 section. This section holds a fast index of DWARF debugging
1302 information and can be used to greatly speed up GDB startup and
1303 operation. See the documentation for `save gdb-index' for details.
1305 * The "watch" command now accepts an optional "-location" argument.
1306 When used, this causes GDB to watch the memory referred to by the
1307 expression. Such a watchpoint is never deleted due to it going out
1310 * GDB now supports thread debugging of core dumps on GNU/Linux.
1312 GDB now activates thread debugging using the libthread_db library
1313 when debugging GNU/Linux core dumps, similarly to when debugging
1314 live processes. As a result, when debugging a core dump file, GDB
1315 is now able to display pthread_t ids of threads. For example, "info
1316 threads" shows the same output as when debugging the process when it
1317 was live. In earlier releases, you'd see something like this:
1320 * 1 LWP 6780 main () at main.c:10
1322 While now you see this:
1325 * 1 Thread 0x7f0f5712a700 (LWP 6780) main () at main.c:10
1327 It is also now possible to inspect TLS variables when debugging core
1330 When debugging a core dump generated on a machine other than the one
1331 used to run GDB, you may need to point GDB at the correct
1332 libthread_db library with the "set libthread-db-search-path"
1333 command. See the user manual for more details on this command.
1335 * When natively debugging programs on PowerPC BookE processors running
1336 a Linux kernel version 2.6.34 or later, GDB supports ranged breakpoints,
1337 which stop execution of the inferior whenever it executes an instruction
1338 at any address within the specified range. See the "PowerPC Embedded"
1339 section in the user manual for more details.
1341 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1343 ** GDBserver is now supported on PowerPC LynxOS (versions 4.x and 5.x),
1344 and i686 LynxOS (version 5.x).
1346 ** GDBserver is now supported on Blackfin Linux.
1348 * New native configurations
1350 ia64 HP-UX ia64-*-hpux*
1354 Analog Devices, Inc. Blackfin Processor bfin-*
1356 * Ada task switching is now supported on sparc-elf targets when
1357 debugging a program using the Ravenscar Profile. For more information,
1358 see the "Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile" section
1359 in the GDB user manual.
1361 * Guile support was removed.
1363 * New features in the GNU simulator
1365 ** The --map-info flag lists all known core mappings.
1367 ** CFI flashes may be simulated via the "cfi" device.
1369 *** Changes in GDB 7.2
1371 * Shared library support for remote targets by default
1373 When GDB is configured for a generic, non-OS specific target, like
1374 for example, --target=arm-eabi or one of the many *-*-elf targets,
1375 GDB now queries remote stubs for loaded shared libraries using the
1376 `qXfer:libraries:read' packet. Previously, shared library support
1377 was always disabled for such configurations.
1381 ** Argument Dependent Lookup (ADL)
1383 In C++ ADL lookup directs function search to the namespaces of its
1384 arguments even if the namespace has not been imported.
1394 Here the compiler will search for `foo' in the namespace of 'b'
1395 and find A::foo. GDB now supports this. This construct is commonly
1396 used in the Standard Template Library for operators.
1398 ** Improved User Defined Operator Support
1400 In addition to member operators, GDB now supports lookup of operators
1401 defined in a namespace and imported with a `using' directive, operators
1402 defined in the global scope, operators imported implicitly from an
1403 anonymous namespace, and the ADL operators mentioned in the previous
1405 GDB now also supports proper overload resolution for all the previously
1406 mentioned flavors of operators.
1408 ** static const class members
1410 Printing of static const class members that are initialized in the
1411 class definition has been fixed.
1413 * Windows Thread Information Block access.
1415 On Windows targets, GDB now supports displaying the Windows Thread
1416 Information Block (TIB) structure. This structure is visible either
1417 by using the new command `info w32 thread-information-block' or, by
1418 dereferencing the new convenience variable named `$_tlb', a
1419 thread-specific pointer to the TIB. This feature is also supported
1420 when remote debugging using GDBserver.
1422 * Static tracepoints
1424 Static tracepoints are calls in the user program into a tracing
1425 library. One such library is a port of the LTTng kernel tracer to
1426 userspace --- UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer, http://lttng.org/ust).
1427 When debugging with GDBserver, GDB now supports combining the GDB
1428 tracepoint machinery with such libraries. For example: the user can
1429 use GDB to probe a static tracepoint marker (a call from the user
1430 program into the tracing library) with the new "strace" command (see
1431 "New commands" below). This creates a "static tracepoint" in the
1432 breakpoint list, that can be manipulated with the same feature set
1433 as fast and regular tracepoints. E.g., collect registers, local and
1434 global variables, collect trace state variables, and define
1435 tracepoint conditions. In addition, the user can collect extra
1436 static tracepoint marker specific data, by collecting the new
1437 $_sdata internal variable. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can
1438 inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to GDB. For more
1439 information, see the "Tracepoints" chapter in GDB user manual. New
1440 remote packets have been defined to support static tracepoints, see
1441 the "New remote packets" section below.
1443 * Better reconstruction of tracepoints after disconnected tracing
1445 GDB will attempt to download the original source form of tracepoint
1446 definitions when starting a trace run, and then will upload these
1447 upon reconnection to the target, resulting in a more accurate
1448 reconstruction of the tracepoints that are in use on the target.
1452 You can now exercise direct control over the ways that GDB can
1453 affect your program. For instance, you can disallow the setting of
1454 breakpoints, so that the program can run continuously (assuming
1455 non-stop mode). In addition, the "observer" variable is available
1456 to switch all of the different controls; in observer mode, GDB
1457 cannot affect the target's behavior at all, which is useful for
1458 tasks like diagnosing live systems in the field.
1460 * The new convenience variable $_thread holds the number of the
1463 * New remote packets
1467 Return the address of the Windows Thread Information Block of a given thread.
1471 In response to several of the tracepoint packets, the target may now
1472 also respond with a number of intermediate `qRelocInsn' request
1473 packets before the final result packet, to have GDB handle
1474 relocating an instruction to execute at a different address. This
1475 is particularly useful for stubs that support fast tracepoints. GDB
1476 reports support for this feature in the qSupported packet.
1480 List static tracepoint markers in the target program.
1484 List static tracepoint markers at a given address in the target
1487 qXfer:statictrace:read
1489 Read the static trace data collected (by a `collect $_sdata'
1490 tracepoint action). The remote stub reports support for this packet
1491 to gdb's qSupported query.
1495 Send the current settings of GDB's permission flags.
1499 Send part of the source (textual) form of a tracepoint definition,
1500 which includes location, conditional, and action list.
1502 * The source command now accepts a -s option to force searching for the
1503 script in the source search path even if the script name specifies
1506 * New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver
1508 - GDBserver now support tracepoints (including fast tracepoints, and
1509 static tracepoints). The feature is currently supported by the
1510 i386-linux and amd64-linux builds. See the "Tracepoints support
1511 in gdbserver" section in the manual for more information.
1513 GDBserver JIT compiles the tracepoint's conditional agent
1514 expression bytecode into native code whenever possible for low
1515 overhead dynamic tracepoints conditionals. For such tracepoints,
1516 an expression that examines program state is evaluated when the
1517 tracepoint is reached, in order to determine whether to capture
1518 trace data. If the condition is simple and false, processing the
1519 tracepoint finishes very quickly and no data is gathered.
1521 GDBserver interfaces with the UST (LTTng Userspace Tracer) library
1522 for static tracepoints support.
1524 - GDBserver now supports x86_64 Windows 64-bit debugging.
1526 * GDB now sends xmlRegisters= in qSupported packet to indicate that
1527 it understands register description.
1529 * The --batch flag now disables pagination and queries.
1531 * X86 general purpose registers
1533 GDB now supports reading/writing byte, word and double-word x86
1534 general purpose registers directly. This means you can use, say,
1535 $ah or $ax to refer, respectively, to the byte register AH and
1536 16-bit word register AX that are actually portions of the 32-bit
1537 register EAX or 64-bit register RAX.
1539 * The `commands' command now accepts a range of breakpoints to modify.
1540 A plain `commands' following a command that creates multiple
1541 breakpoints affects all the breakpoints set by that command. This
1542 applies to breakpoints set by `rbreak', and also applies when a
1543 single `break' command creates multiple breakpoints (e.g.,
1544 breakpoints on overloaded c++ functions).
1546 * The `rbreak' command now accepts a filename specification as part of
1547 its argument, limiting the functions selected by the regex to those
1548 in the specified file.
1550 * Support for remote debugging Windows and SymbianOS shared libraries
1551 from Unix hosts has been improved. Non Windows GDB builds now can
1552 understand target reported file names that follow MS-DOS based file
1553 system semantics, such as file names that include drive letters and
1554 use the backslash character as directory separator. This makes it
1555 possible to transparently use the "set sysroot" and "set
1556 solib-search-path" on Unix hosts to point as host copies of the
1557 target's shared libraries. See the new command "set
1558 target-file-system-kind" described below, and the "Commands to
1559 specify files" section in the user manual for more information.
1563 eval template, expressions...
1564 Convert the values of one or more expressions under the control
1565 of the string template to a command line, and call it.
1567 set target-file-system-kind unix|dos-based|auto
1568 show target-file-system-kind
1569 Set or show the assumed file system kind for target reported file
1572 save breakpoints <filename>
1573 Save all current breakpoint definitions to a file suitable for use
1574 in a later debugging session. To read the saved breakpoint
1575 definitions, use the `source' command.
1577 `save tracepoints' is a new alias for `save-tracepoints'. The latter
1580 info static-tracepoint-markers
1581 Display information about static tracepoint markers in the target.
1583 strace FN | FILE:LINE | *ADDR | -m MARKER_ID
1584 Define a static tracepoint by probing a marker at the given
1585 function, line, address, or marker ID.
1589 Enable and disable observer mode.
1591 set may-write-registers on|off
1592 set may-write-memory on|off
1593 set may-insert-breakpoints on|off
1594 set may-insert-tracepoints on|off
1595 set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on|off
1596 set may-interrupt on|off
1597 Set individual permissions for GDB effects on the target. Note that
1598 some of these settings can have undesirable or surprising
1599 consequences, particularly when changed in the middle of a session.
1600 For instance, disabling the writing of memory can prevent
1601 breakpoints from being inserted, cause single-stepping to fail, or
1602 even crash your program, if you disable after breakpoints have been
1603 inserted. However, GDB should not crash.
1605 set record memory-query on|off
1606 show record memory-query
1607 Control whether to stop the inferior if memory changes caused
1608 by an instruction cannot be recorded.
1613 The disassemble command now supports "start,+length" form of two arguments.
1617 ** GDB now provides a new directory location, called the python directory,
1618 where Python scripts written for GDB can be installed. The location
1619 of that directory is <data-directory>/python, where <data-directory>
1620 is the GDB data directory. For more details, see section `Scripting
1621 GDB using Python' in the manual.
1623 ** The GDB Python API now has access to breakpoints, symbols, symbol
1624 tables, program spaces, inferiors, threads and frame's code blocks.
1625 Additionally, GDB Parameters can now be created from the API, and
1626 manipulated via set/show in the CLI.
1628 ** New functions gdb.target_charset, gdb.target_wide_charset,
1629 gdb.progspaces, gdb.current_progspace, and gdb.string_to_argv.
1631 ** New exception gdb.GdbError.
1633 ** Pretty-printers are now also looked up in the current program space.
1635 ** Pretty-printers can now be individually enabled and disabled.
1637 ** GDB now looks for names of Python scripts to auto-load in a
1638 special section named `.debug_gdb_scripts', in addition to looking
1639 for a OBJFILE-gdb.py script when OBJFILE is read by the debugger.
1641 * Tracepoint actions were unified with breakpoint commands. In particular,
1642 there are no longer differences in "info break" output for breakpoints and
1643 tracepoints and the "commands" command can be used for both tracepoints and
1644 regular breakpoints.
1648 ARM Symbian arm*-*-symbianelf*
1650 * D language support.
1651 GDB now supports debugging programs written in the D programming
1654 * GDB now supports the extended ptrace interface for PowerPC which is
1655 available since Linux kernel version 2.6.34. This automatically enables
1656 any hardware breakpoints and additional hardware watchpoints available in
1657 the processor. The old ptrace interface exposes just one hardware
1658 watchpoint and no hardware breakpoints.
1660 * GDB is now able to use the Data Value Compare (DVC) register available on
1661 embedded PowerPC processors to implement in hardware simple watchpoint
1662 conditions of the form:
1664 watch ADDRESS|VARIABLE if ADDRESS|VARIABLE == CONSTANT EXPRESSION
1666 This works in native GDB running on Linux kernels with the extended ptrace
1667 interface mentioned above.
1669 *** Changes in GDB 7.1
1673 ** Namespace Support
1675 GDB now supports importing of namespaces in C++. This enables the
1676 user to inspect variables from imported namespaces. Support for
1677 namepace aliasing has also been added. So, if a namespace is
1678 aliased in the current scope (e.g. namepace C=A; ) the user can
1679 print variables using the alias (e.g. (gdb) print C::x).
1683 All known bugs relating to the printing of virtual base class were
1684 fixed. It is now possible to call overloaded static methods using a
1689 The C++ cast operators static_cast<>, dynamic_cast<>, const_cast<>,
1690 and reinterpret_cast<> are now handled by the C++ expression parser.
1694 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze-*-*
1699 Xilinx MicroBlaze microblaze
1702 * Multi-program debugging.
1704 GDB now has support for multi-program (a.k.a. multi-executable or
1705 multi-exec) debugging. This allows for debugging multiple inferiors
1706 simultaneously each running a different program under the same GDB
1707 session. See "Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs" in the
1708 manual for more information. This implied some user visible changes
1709 in the multi-inferior support. For example, "info inferiors" now
1710 lists inferiors that are not running yet or that have exited
1711 already. See also "New commands" and "New options" below.
1713 * New tracing features
1715 GDB's tracepoint facility now includes several new features:
1717 ** Trace state variables
1719 GDB tracepoints now include support for trace state variables, which
1720 are variables managed by the target agent during a tracing
1721 experiment. They are useful for tracepoints that trigger each
1722 other, so for instance one tracepoint can count hits in a variable,
1723 and then a second tracepoint has a condition that is true when the
1724 count reaches a particular value. Trace state variables share the
1725 $-syntax of GDB convenience variables, and can appear in both
1726 tracepoint actions and condition expressions. Use the "tvariable"
1727 command to create, and "info tvariables" to view; see "Trace State
1728 Variables" in the manual for more detail.
1732 GDB now includes an option for defining fast tracepoints, which
1733 targets may implement more efficiently, such as by installing a jump
1734 into the target agent rather than a trap instruction. The resulting
1735 speedup can be by two orders of magnitude or more, although the
1736 tradeoff is that some program locations on some target architectures
1737 might not allow fast tracepoint installation, for instance if the
1738 instruction to be replaced is shorter than the jump. To request a
1739 fast tracepoint, use the "ftrace" command, with syntax identical to
1740 the regular trace command.
1742 ** Disconnected tracing
1744 It is now possible to detach GDB from the target while it is running
1745 a trace experiment, then reconnect later to see how the experiment
1746 is going. In addition, a new variable disconnected-tracing lets you
1747 tell the target agent whether to continue running a trace if the
1748 connection is lost unexpectedly.
1752 GDB now has the ability to save the trace buffer into a file, and
1753 then use that file as a target, similarly to you can do with
1754 corefiles. You can select trace frames, print data that was
1755 collected in them, and use tstatus to display the state of the
1756 tracing run at the moment that it was saved. To create a trace
1757 file, use "tsave <filename>", and to use it, do "target tfile
1760 ** Circular trace buffer
1762 You can ask the target agent to handle the trace buffer as a
1763 circular buffer, discarding the oldest trace frames to make room for
1764 newer ones, by setting circular-trace-buffer to on. This feature may
1765 not be available for all target agents.
1770 The disassemble command, when invoked with two arguments, now requires
1771 the arguments to be comma-separated.
1774 The info variables command now displays variable definitions. Files
1775 which only declare a variable are not shown.
1778 The source command is now capable of sourcing Python scripts.
1779 This feature is dependent on the debugger being build with Python
1782 Related to this enhancement is also the introduction of a new command
1783 "set script-extension" (see below).
1785 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
1787 record save [<FILENAME>]
1788 Save a file (in core file format) containing the process record
1789 execution log for replay debugging at a later time.
1791 record restore <FILENAME>
1792 Restore the process record execution log that was saved at an
1793 earlier time, for replay debugging.
1795 add-inferior [-copies <N>] [-exec <FILENAME>]
1798 clone-inferior [-copies <N>] [ID]
1799 Make a new inferior ready to execute the same program another
1800 inferior has loaded.
1805 maint info program-spaces
1806 List the program spaces loaded into GDB.
1808 set remote interrupt-sequence [Ctrl-C | BREAK | BREAK-g]
1809 show remote interrupt-sequence
1810 Allow the user to select one of ^C, a BREAK signal or BREAK-g
1811 as the sequence to the remote target in order to interrupt the execution.
1812 Ctrl-C is a default. Some system prefers BREAK which is high level of
1813 serial line for some certain time. Linux kernel prefers BREAK-g, a.k.a
1814 Magic SysRq g. It is BREAK signal and character 'g'.
1816 set remote interrupt-on-connect [on | off]
1817 show remote interrupt-on-connect
1818 When interrupt-on-connect is ON, gdb sends interrupt-sequence to
1819 remote target when gdb connects to it. This is needed when you debug
1822 set remotebreak [on | off]
1824 Deprecated. Use "set/show remote interrupt-sequence" instead.
1826 tvariable $NAME [ = EXP ]
1827 Create or modify a trace state variable.
1830 List trace state variables and their values.
1832 delete tvariable $NAME ...
1833 Delete one or more trace state variables.
1836 Evaluate the given expressions without collecting anything into the
1837 trace buffer. (Valid in tracepoint actions only.)
1839 ftrace FN / FILE:LINE / *ADDR
1840 Define a fast tracepoint at the given function, line, or address.
1842 * New expression syntax
1844 GDB now parses the 0b prefix of binary numbers the same way as GCC does.
1845 GDB now parses 0b101010 identically with 42.
1849 set follow-exec-mode new|same
1850 show follow-exec-mode
1851 Control whether GDB reuses the same inferior across an exec call or
1852 creates a new one. This is useful to be able to restart the old
1853 executable after the inferior having done an exec call.
1855 set default-collect EXPR, ...
1856 show default-collect
1857 Define a list of expressions to be collected at each tracepoint.
1858 This is a useful way to ensure essential items are not overlooked,
1859 such as registers or a critical global variable.
1861 set disconnected-tracing
1862 show disconnected-tracing
1863 If set to 1, the target is instructed to continue tracing if it
1864 loses its connection to GDB. If 0, the target is to stop tracing
1867 set circular-trace-buffer
1868 show circular-trace-buffer
1869 If set to on, the target is instructed to use a circular trace buffer
1870 and discard the oldest trace frames instead of stopping the trace due
1871 to a full trace buffer. If set to off, the trace stops when the buffer
1872 fills up. Some targets may not support this.
1874 set script-extension off|soft|strict
1875 show script-extension
1876 If set to "off", the debugger does not perform any script language
1877 recognition, and all sourced files are assumed to be GDB scripts.
1878 If set to "soft" (the default), files are sourced according to
1879 filename extension, falling back to GDB scripts if the first
1881 If set to "strict", files are sourced according to filename extension.
1883 set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on|off
1884 show ada trust-PAD-over-XVS
1885 If off, activate a workaround against a bug in the debugging information
1886 generated by the compiler for PAD types (see gcc/exp_dbug.ads in
1887 the GCC sources for more information about the GNAT encoding and
1888 PAD types in particular). It is always safe to set this option to
1889 off, but this introduces a slight performance penalty. The default
1892 * Python API Improvements
1894 ** GDB provides the new class gdb.LazyString. This is useful in
1895 some pretty-printing cases. The new method gdb.Value.lazy_string
1896 provides a simple way to create objects of this type.
1898 ** The fields returned by gdb.Type.fields now have an
1899 `is_base_class' attribute.
1901 ** The new method gdb.Type.range returns the range of an array type.
1903 ** The new method gdb.parse_and_eval can be used to parse and
1904 evaluate an expression.
1906 * New remote packets
1909 Define a trace state variable.
1912 Get the current value of a trace state variable.
1915 Set desired tracing behavior upon disconnection.
1918 Set the trace buffer to be linear or circular.
1921 Get data about the tracepoints currently in use.
1925 Process record now works correctly with hardware watchpoints.
1927 Multiple bug fixes have been made to the mips-irix port, making it
1928 much more reliable. In particular:
1929 - Debugging threaded applications is now possible again. Previously,
1930 GDB would hang while starting the program, or while waiting for
1931 the program to stop at a breakpoint.
1932 - Attaching to a running process no longer hangs.
1933 - An error occurring while loading a core file has been fixed.
1934 - Changing the value of the PC register now works again. This fixes
1935 problems observed when using the "jump" command, or when calling
1936 a function from GDB, or even when assigning a new value to $pc.
1937 - With the "finish" and "return" commands, the return value for functions
1938 returning a small array is now correctly printed.
1939 - It is now possible to break on shared library code which gets executed
1940 during a shared library init phase (code executed while executing
1941 their .init section). Previously, the breakpoint would have no effect.
1942 - GDB is now able to backtrace through the signal handler for
1943 non-threaded programs.
1945 PIE (Position Independent Executable) programs debugging is now supported.
1946 This includes debugging execution of PIC (Position Independent Code) shared
1947 libraries although for that, it should be possible to run such libraries as an
1950 *** Changes in GDB 7.0
1952 * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation. Applications that
1953 dynamically generate code can create symbol files in memory and register
1954 them with GDB. For users, the feature should work transparently, and
1955 for JIT developers, the interface is documented in the GDB manual in the
1956 "JIT Compilation Interface" chapter.
1958 * Tracepoints may now be conditional. The syntax is as for
1959 breakpoints; either an "if" clause appended to the "trace" command,
1960 or the "condition" command is available. GDB sends the condition to
1961 the target for evaluation using the same bytecode format as is used
1962 for tracepoint actions.
1964 * The disassemble command now supports: an optional /r modifier, print the
1965 raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form, and an optional /m
1966 modifier to print mixed source+assembly.
1968 * Process record and replay
1970 In a architecture environment that supports ``process record and
1971 replay'', ``process record and replay'' target can record a log of
1972 the process execution, and replay it with both forward and reverse
1975 * Reverse debugging: GDB now has new commands reverse-continue, reverse-
1976 step, reverse-next, reverse-finish, reverse-stepi, reverse-nexti, and
1977 set execution-direction {forward|reverse}, for targets that support
1980 * GDB now supports hardware watchpoints on MIPS/Linux systems. This
1981 feature is available with a native GDB running on kernel version
1984 * GDB now has support for multi-byte and wide character sets on the
1985 target. Strings whose character type is wchar_t, char16_t, or
1986 char32_t are now correctly printed. GDB supports wide- and unicode-
1987 literals in C, that is, L'x', L"string", u'x', u"string", U'x', and
1988 U"string" syntax. And, GDB allows the "%ls" and "%lc" formats in
1989 `printf'. This feature requires iconv to work properly; if your
1990 system does not have a working iconv, GDB can use GNU libiconv. See
1991 the installation instructions for more information.
1993 * GDB now supports automatic retrieval of shared library files from
1994 remote targets. To use this feature, specify a system root that begins
1995 with the `remote:' prefix, either via the `set sysroot' command or via
1996 the `--with-sysroot' configure-time option.
1998 * "info sharedlibrary" now takes an optional regex of libraries to show,
1999 and it now reports if a shared library has no debugging information.
2001 * Commands `set debug-file-directory', `set solib-search-path' and `set args'
2002 now complete on file names.
2004 * When completing in expressions, gdb will attempt to limit
2005 completions to allowable structure or union fields, where appropriate.
2006 For instance, consider:
2008 # struct example { int f1; double f2; };
2009 # struct example variable;
2012 If the user types TAB at the end of this command line, the available
2013 completions will be "f1" and "f2".
2015 * Inlined functions are now supported. They show up in backtraces, and
2016 the "step", "next", and "finish" commands handle them automatically.
2018 * GDB now supports the token-splicing (##) and stringification (#)
2019 operators when expanding macros. It also supports variable-arity
2022 * GDB now supports inspecting extra signal information, exported by
2023 the new $_siginfo convenience variable. The feature is currently
2024 implemented on linux ARM, i386 and amd64.
2026 * GDB can now display the VFP floating point registers and NEON vector
2027 registers on ARM targets. Both ARM GNU/Linux native GDB and gdbserver
2028 can provide these registers (requires Linux 2.6.30 or later). Remote
2029 and simulator targets may also provide them.
2031 * New remote packets
2034 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2037 Turn off `+'/`-' protocol acknowledgments to permit more efficient
2038 operation over reliable transport links. Use of this packet is
2039 controlled by the `set remote noack-packet' command.
2042 Kill the process with the specified process ID. Use this in preference
2043 to `k' when multiprocess protocol extensions are supported.
2046 Obtains additional operating system information
2050 Read or write additional signal information.
2052 * Removed remote protocol undocumented extension
2054 An undocumented extension to the remote protocol's `S' stop reply
2055 packet that permited the stub to pass a process id was removed.
2056 Remote servers should use the `T' stop reply packet instead.
2058 * GDB now supports multiple function calling conventions according to the
2059 DWARF-2 DW_AT_calling_convention function attribute.
2061 * The SH target utilizes the aforementioned change to distinguish between gcc
2062 and Renesas calling convention. It also adds the new CLI commands
2063 `set/show sh calling-convention'.
2065 * GDB can now read compressed debug sections, as produced by GNU gold
2066 with the --compress-debug-sections=zlib flag.
2068 * 64-bit core files are now supported on AIX.
2070 * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64.
2072 * Watchpoints can now be set on unreadable memory locations, e.g. addresses
2073 which will be allocated using malloc later in program execution.
2075 * The qXfer:libraries:read remote procotol packet now allows passing a
2076 list of section offsets.
2078 * On GNU/Linux, GDB can now attach to stopped processes. Several race
2079 conditions handling signals delivered during attach or thread creation
2080 have also been fixed.
2082 * GDB now supports the use of DWARF boolean types for Ada's type Boolean.
2083 From the user's standpoint, all unqualified instances of True and False
2084 are treated as the standard definitions, regardless of context.
2086 * GDB now parses C++ symbol and type names more flexibly. For
2089 template<typename T> class C { };
2092 GDB will now correctly handle all of:
2094 ptype C<char const *>
2095 ptype C<char const*>
2096 ptype C<const char *>
2097 ptype C<const char*>
2099 * New features in the GDB remote stub, gdbserver
2101 - The "--wrapper" command-line argument tells gdbserver to use a
2102 wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2104 - On PowerPC and S/390 targets, it is now possible to use a single
2105 gdbserver executable to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2106 (This requires gdbserver itself to be built as a 64-bit executable.)
2108 - gdbserver uses the new noack protocol mode for TCP connections to
2109 reduce communications latency, if also supported and enabled in GDB.
2111 - Support for the sparc64-linux-gnu target is now included in
2114 - The amd64-linux build of gdbserver now supports debugging both
2115 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
2117 - The i386-linux, amd64-linux, and i386-win32 builds of gdbserver
2118 now support hardware watchpoints, and will use them automatically
2123 GDB now has support for scripting using Python. Whether this is
2124 available is determined at configure time.
2126 New GDB commands can now be written in Python.
2128 * Ada tasking support
2130 Ada tasks can now be inspected in GDB. The following commands have
2134 Print the list of Ada tasks.
2136 Print detailed information about task number N.
2138 Print the task number of the current task.
2140 Switch the context of debugging to task number N.
2142 * Support for user-defined prefixed commands. The "define" command can
2143 add new commands to existing prefixes, e.g. "target".
2145 * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging.
2147 GDB now has generalized support for multi-inferior debugging. See
2148 "Debugging Multiple Inferiors" in the manual for more information.
2149 Although availability still depends on target support, the command
2150 set is more uniform now. The GNU/Linux specific multi-forks support
2151 has been migrated to this new framework. This implied some user
2152 visible changes; see "New commands" and also "Removed commands"
2155 * Target descriptions can now describe the target OS ABI. See the
2156 "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for more
2159 * Target descriptions can now describe "compatible" architectures
2160 to indicate that the target can execute applications for a different
2161 architecture in addition to those for the main target architecture.
2162 See the "Target Description Format" section in the user manual for
2165 * Multi-architecture debugging.
2167 GDB now includes general supports for debugging applications on
2168 hybrid systems that use more than one single processor architecture
2169 at the same time. Each such hybrid architecture still requires
2170 specific support to be added. The only hybrid architecture supported
2171 in this version of GDB is the Cell Broadband Engine.
2173 * GDB now supports integrated debugging of Cell/B.E. applications that
2174 use both the PPU and SPU architectures. To enable support for hybrid
2175 Cell/B.E. debugging, you need to configure GDB to support both the
2176 powerpc-linux or powerpc64-linux and the spu-elf targets, using the
2177 --enable-targets configure option.
2179 * Non-stop mode debugging.
2181 For some targets, GDB now supports an optional mode of operation in
2182 which you can examine stopped threads while other threads continue
2183 to execute freely. This is referred to as non-stop mode, with the
2184 old mode referred to as all-stop mode. See the "Non-Stop Mode"
2185 section in the user manual for more information.
2187 To be able to support remote non-stop debugging, a remote stub needs
2188 to implement the non-stop mode remote protocol extensions, as
2189 described in the "Remote Non-Stop" section of the user manual. The
2190 GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been adjusted to support these
2191 extensions on linux targets.
2193 * New commands (for set/show, see "New options" below)
2195 catch syscall [NAME(S) | NUMBER(S)]
2196 Catch system calls. Arguments, which should be names of system
2197 calls or their numbers, mean catch only those syscalls. Without
2198 arguments, every syscall will be caught. When the inferior issues
2199 any of the specified syscalls, GDB will stop and announce the system
2200 call, both when it is called and when its call returns. This
2201 feature is currently available with a native GDB running on the
2202 Linux Kernel, under the following architectures: x86, x86_64,
2203 PowerPC and PowerPC64.
2205 find [/size-char] [/max-count] start-address, end-address|+search-space-size,
2207 Search memory for a sequence of bytes.
2209 maint set python print-stack
2210 maint show python print-stack
2211 Show a stack trace when an error is encountered in a Python script.
2214 Invoke CODE by passing it to the Python interpreter.
2219 These allow macros to be defined, undefined, and listed
2223 Show operating system information about processes.
2226 List the inferiors currently under GDB's control.
2229 Switch focus to inferior number NUM.
2232 Detach from inferior number NUM.
2235 Kill inferior number NUM.
2239 set spu stop-on-load
2240 show spu stop-on-load
2241 Control whether to stop for new SPE threads during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2243 set spu auto-flush-cache
2244 show spu auto-flush-cache
2245 Control whether to automatically flush the software-managed cache
2246 during Cell/B.E. debugging.
2248 set sh calling-convention
2249 show sh calling-convention
2250 Control the calling convention used when calling SH target functions.
2253 show debug timestamp
2254 Control display of timestamps with GDB debugging output.
2256 set disassemble-next-line
2257 show disassemble-next-line
2258 Control display of disassembled source lines or instructions when
2261 set remote noack-packet
2262 show remote noack-packet
2263 Set/show the use of remote protocol QStartNoAckMode packet. See above
2264 under "New remote packets."
2266 set remote query-attached-packet
2267 show remote query-attached-packet
2268 Control use of remote protocol `qAttached' (query-attached) packet.
2270 set remote read-siginfo-object
2271 show remote read-siginfo-object
2272 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:read' (read-siginfo-object)
2275 set remote write-siginfo-object
2276 show remote write-siginfo-object
2277 Control use of remote protocol `qXfer:siginfo:write' (write-siginfo-object)
2280 set remote reverse-continue
2281 show remote reverse-continue
2282 Control use of remote protocol 'bc' (reverse-continue) packet.
2284 set remote reverse-step
2285 show remote reverse-step
2286 Control use of remote protocol 'bs' (reverse-step) packet.
2288 set displaced-stepping
2289 show displaced-stepping
2290 Control displaced stepping mode. Displaced stepping is a way to
2291 single-step over breakpoints without removing them from the debuggee.
2292 Also known as "out-of-line single-stepping".
2295 show debug displaced
2296 Control display of debugging info for displaced stepping.
2298 maint set internal-error
2299 maint show internal-error
2300 Control what GDB does when an internal error is detected.
2302 maint set internal-warning
2303 maint show internal-warning
2304 Control what GDB does when an internal warning is detected.
2309 Use a wrapper program to launch programs for debugging.
2311 set multiple-symbols (all|ask|cancel)
2312 show multiple-symbols
2313 The value of this variable can be changed to adjust the debugger behavior
2314 when an expression or a breakpoint location contains an ambiguous symbol
2315 name (an overloaded function name, for instance).
2317 set breakpoint always-inserted
2318 show breakpoint always-inserted
2319 Keep breakpoints always inserted in the target, as opposed to inserting
2320 them when resuming the target, and removing them when the target stops.
2321 This option can improve debugger performance on slow remote targets.
2323 set arm fallback-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2324 show arm fallback-mode
2325 set arm force-mode (arm|thumb|auto)
2327 These commands control how ARM GDB determines whether instructions
2328 are ARM or Thumb. The default for both settings is auto, which uses
2329 the current CPSR value for instructions without symbols; previous
2330 versions of GDB behaved as if "set arm fallback-mode arm".
2332 set disable-randomization
2333 show disable-randomization
2334 Standalone programs run with the virtual address space randomization enabled
2335 by default on some platforms. This option keeps the addresses stable across
2336 multiple debugging sessions.
2340 Control whether other threads are stopped or not when some thread hits
2345 Requests that asynchronous execution is enabled in the target, if available.
2346 In this case, it's possible to resume target in the background, and interact
2347 with GDB while the target is running. "show target-async" displays the
2348 current state of asynchronous execution of the target.
2350 set target-wide-charset
2351 show target-wide-charset
2352 The target-wide-charset is the name of the character set that GDB
2353 uses when printing characters whose type is wchar_t.
2355 set tcp auto-retry (on|off)
2357 set tcp connect-timeout
2358 show tcp connect-timeout
2359 These commands allow GDB to retry failed TCP connections to a remote stub
2360 with a specified timeout period; this is useful if the stub is launched
2361 in parallel with GDB but may not be ready to accept connections immediately.
2363 set libthread-db-search-path
2364 show libthread-db-search-path
2365 Control list of directories which GDB will search for appropriate
2368 set schedule-multiple (on|off)
2369 show schedule-multiple
2370 Allow GDB to resume all threads of all processes or only threads of
2371 the current process.
2375 Use more aggressive caching for accesses to the stack. This improves
2376 performance of remote debugging (particularly backtraces) without
2377 affecting correctness.
2379 set interactive-mode (on|off|auto)
2380 show interactive-mode
2381 Control whether GDB runs in interactive mode (on) or not (off).
2382 When in interactive mode, GDB waits for the user to answer all
2383 queries. Otherwise, GDB does not wait and assumes the default
2384 answer. When set to auto (the default), GDB determines which
2385 mode to use based on the stdin settings.
2390 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `info
2391 inferiors' command. To list checkpoints, you can still use the
2392 `info checkpoints' command, which was an alias for the `info forks'
2396 Replaced by the new `inferior' command. To switch between
2397 checkpoints, you can still use the `restart' command, which was an
2398 alias for the `fork' command.
2401 This is removed, since some targets don't have a notion of
2402 processes. To switch between processes, you can still use the
2403 `inferior' command using GDB's own inferior number.
2406 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `kill
2407 inferior' command. To delete a checkpoint, you can still use the
2408 `delete checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `delete
2412 For program forks, this is replaced by the new more generic `detach
2413 inferior' command. To detach a checkpoint, you can still use the
2414 `detach checkpoint' command, which was an alias for the `detach
2417 * New native configurations
2419 x86/x86_64 Darwin i[34567]86-*-darwin*
2421 x86_64 MinGW x86_64-*-mingw*
2425 Lattice Mico32 lm32-*
2426 x86 DICOS i[34567]86-*-dicos*
2427 x86_64 DICOS x86_64-*-dicos*
2430 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports x86 Windows CE
2431 (mingw32ce) debugging.
2437 These commands were actually not implemented on any target.
2439 *** Changes in GDB 6.8
2441 * New native configurations
2443 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*netbsd*
2444 Xtensa GNU/Linux xtensa*-*-linux*
2448 NetBSD/hppa hppa*-*-netbsd*
2449 Xtensa GNU/Lunux xtensa*-*-linux*
2451 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
2453 When the '-p NUMBER' or '--pid NUMBER' options are used, and
2454 attaching to process NUMBER fails, GDB no longer attempts to open a
2455 core file named NUMBER. Attaching to a program using the -c option
2456 is no longer supported. Instead, use the '-p' or '--pid' options.
2458 * GDB can now be built as a native debugger for debugging Windows x86
2459 (mingw32) Portable Executable (PE) programs.
2461 * Pending breakpoints no longer change their number when their address
2464 * GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations,
2465 including breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates,
2466 and in inlined functions.
2468 * GDB's ability to debug optimized code has been improved. GDB more
2469 accurately identifies function bodies and lexical blocks that occupy
2470 more than one contiguous range of addresses.
2472 * Target descriptions can now describe registers for PowerPC.
2474 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the AltiVec and SPE
2475 registers on PowerPC targets.
2477 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports thread debugging on GNU/Linux
2478 targets even when the libthread_db library is not available.
2480 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports the new file transfer
2481 commands (remote put, remote get, and remote delete).
2483 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports run and attach in
2484 extended-remote mode.
2486 * hppa*64*-*-hpux11* target broken
2487 The debugger is unable to start a program and fails with the following
2488 error: "Error trying to get information about dynamic linker".
2489 The gdb-6.7 release is also affected.
2491 * GDB now supports the --enable-targets= configure option to allow
2492 building a single GDB executable that supports multiple remote
2493 target architectures.
2495 * GDB now supports debugging C and C++ programs which use the
2496 Decimal Floating Point extension. In addition, the PowerPC target
2497 now has a set of pseudo-registers to inspect decimal float values
2498 stored in two consecutive float registers.
2500 * The -break-insert MI command can optionally create pending
2503 * Improved support for debugging Ada
2504 Many improvements to the Ada language support have been made. These
2506 - Better support for Ada2005 interface types
2507 - Improved handling of arrays and slices in general
2508 - Better support for Taft-amendment types
2509 - The '{type} ADDRESS' expression is now allowed on the left hand-side
2511 - Improved command completion in Ada
2514 * GDB on GNU/Linux and HP/UX can now debug through "exec" of a new
2519 set print frame-arguments (all|scalars|none)
2520 show print frame-arguments
2521 The value of this variable can be changed to control which argument
2522 values should be printed by the debugger when displaying a frame.
2527 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2534 Transfer files to and from a remote target, and delete remote files.
2536 * New remote packets
2543 Open, close, read, write, and delete files on the remote system.
2546 Attach to an existing process on the remote system, in extended-remote
2550 Run a new process on the remote system, in extended-remote mode.
2552 *** Changes in GDB 6.7
2554 * Resolved 101 resource leaks, null pointer dereferences, etc. in gdb,
2555 bfd, libiberty and opcodes, as revealed by static analysis donated by
2556 Coverity, Inc. (http://scan.coverity.com).
2558 * When looking up multiply-defined global symbols, GDB will now prefer the
2559 symbol definition in the current shared library if it was built using the
2560 -Bsymbolic linker option.
2562 * When the Text User Interface (TUI) is not configured, GDB will now
2563 recognize the -tui command-line option and print a message that the TUI
2566 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now has lower overhead for high
2567 frequency signals (e.g. SIGALRM) via the QPassSignals packet.
2569 * GDB for MIPS targets now autodetects whether a remote target provides
2570 32-bit or 64-bit register values.
2572 * Support for C++ member pointers has been improved.
2574 * GDB now understands XML target descriptions, which specify the
2575 target's overall architecture. GDB can read a description from
2576 a local file or over the remote serial protocol.
2578 * Vectors of single-byte data use a new integer type which is not
2579 automatically displayed as character or string data.
2581 * The /s format now works with the print command. It displays
2582 arrays of single-byte integers and pointers to single-byte integers
2585 * Target descriptions can now describe target-specific registers,
2586 for architectures which have implemented the support (currently
2587 only ARM, M68K, and MIPS).
2589 * GDB and the GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now support the XScale
2592 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support
2593 ARM Windows CE (mingw32ce) debugging, and GDB Windows CE support
2594 has been rewritten to use the standard GDB remote protocol.
2596 * GDB can now step into C++ functions which are called through thunks.
2598 * GDB for the Cell/B.E. SPU now supports overlay debugging.
2600 * The GDB remote protocol "qOffsets" packet can now honor ELF segment
2601 layout. It also supports a TextSeg= and DataSeg= response when only
2602 segment base addresses (rather than offsets) are available.
2604 * The /i format now outputs any trailing branch delay slot instructions
2605 immediately following the last instruction within the count specified.
2607 * The GDB remote protocol "T" stop reply packet now supports a
2608 "library" response. Combined with the new "qXfer:libraries:read"
2609 packet, this response allows GDB to debug shared libraries on targets
2610 where the operating system manages the list of loaded libraries (e.g.
2611 Windows and SymbianOS).
2613 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, now supports dynamic link libraries
2614 (DLLs) on Windows and Windows CE targets.
2616 * GDB now supports a faster verification that a .debug file matches its binary
2617 according to its build-id signature, if the signature is present.
2623 Enable or disable hardware flow control (RTS/CTS) on the serial port
2624 when debugging using remote targets.
2626 set mem inaccessible-by-default
2627 show mem inaccessible-by-default
2628 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2629 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2630 prevents GDB from accessing memory outside the memory map. This
2631 is useful for targets with memory mapped registers or which react
2632 badly to accesses of unmapped address space.
2634 set breakpoint auto-hw
2635 show breakpoint auto-hw
2636 If the target supplies a memory map, for instance via the remote
2637 protocol's "qXfer:memory-map:read" packet, setting this variable
2638 lets GDB use hardware breakpoints automatically for memory regions
2639 where it can not use software breakpoints. This covers both the
2640 "break" command and internal breakpoints used for other commands
2641 including "next" and "finish".
2644 catch exception unhandled
2645 Stop the program execution when Ada exceptions are raised.
2648 Stop the program execution when an Ada assertion failed.
2652 Set an alternate system root for target files. This is a more
2653 general version of "set solib-absolute-prefix", which is now
2654 an alias to "set sysroot".
2657 Provide extended SPU facility status information. This set of
2658 commands is available only when debugging the Cell/B.E. SPU
2661 * New native configurations
2663 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*openbsd*
2666 unset tdesc filename
2668 Use the specified local file as an XML target description, and do
2669 not query the target for its built-in description.
2673 OpenBSD/sh sh*-*-openbsd*
2674 MIPS64 GNU/Linux (gdbserver) mips64-linux-gnu
2675 Toshiba Media Processor mep-elf
2677 * New remote packets
2680 Ignore the specified signals; pass them directly to the debugged program
2681 without stopping other threads or reporting them to GDB.
2683 qXfer:features:read:
2684 Read an XML target description from the target, which describes its
2689 Read or write contents of an spufs file on the target system. These
2690 packets are available only on the Cell/B.E. SPU architecture.
2692 qXfer:libraries:read:
2693 Report the loaded shared libraries. Combined with new "T" packet
2694 response, this packet allows GDB to debug shared libraries on
2695 targets where the operating system manages the list of loaded
2696 libraries (e.g. Windows and SymbianOS).
2700 Support for these obsolete configurations has been removed.
2708 i[34567]86-*-lynxos*
2709 i[34567]86-*-netware*
2710 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v5*
2711 i[34567]86-*-sco3.2v4*
2713 i[34567]86-*-sysv4.2*
2716 i[34567]86-*-unixware2*
2717 i[34567]86-*-unixware*
2726 * Other removed features
2733 Various m68k-only ROM monitors.
2740 Various Renesas ROM monitors and debugging interfaces for SH and
2745 Support for a Macraigor serial interface to on-chip debugging.
2746 GDB does not directly support the newer parallel or USB
2751 A debug information format. The predecessor to DWARF 2 and
2752 DWARF 3, which are still supported.
2754 Support for the HP aCC compiler on HP-UX/PA-RISC
2756 SOM-encapsulated symbolic debugging information, automatic
2757 invocation of pxdb, and the aCC custom C++ ABI. This does not
2758 affect HP-UX for Itanium or GCC for HP-UX/PA-RISC. Code compiled
2759 with aCC can still be debugged on an assembly level.
2761 MIPS ".pdr" sections
2763 A MIPS-specific format used to describe stack frame layout
2764 in debugging information.
2768 GDB could work with an older version of Guile to debug
2769 the interpreter and Scheme programs running in it.
2771 set mips stack-arg-size
2772 set mips saved-gpreg-size
2774 Use "set mips abi" to control parameter passing for MIPS.
2776 *** Changes in GDB 6.6
2781 Cell Broadband Engine SPU spu-elf
2783 * GDB can now be configured as a cross-debugger targeting native Windows
2784 (mingw32) or Cygwin. It can communicate with a remote debugging stub
2785 running on a Windows system over TCP/IP to debug Windows programs.
2787 * The GDB remote stub, gdbserver, has been updated to support Windows and
2788 Cygwin debugging. Both single-threaded and multi-threaded programs are
2791 * The "set trust-readonly-sections" command works again. This command was
2792 broken in GDB 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5.
2794 * The "load" command now supports writing to flash memory, if the remote
2795 stub provides the required support.
2797 * Support for GNU/Linux Thread Local Storage (TLS, per-thread variables) no
2798 longer requires symbolic debug information (e.g. DWARF-2).
2803 unset substitute-path
2804 show substitute-path
2805 Manage a list of substitution rules that GDB uses to rewrite the name
2806 of the directories where the sources are located. This can be useful
2807 for instance when the sources were moved to a different location
2808 between compilation and debugging.
2812 Print each CLI command as it is executed. Each command is prefixed with
2813 a number of `+' symbols representing the nesting depth.
2814 The source command now has a `-v' option to enable the same feature.
2818 The ARM Demon monitor support (RDP protocol, "target rdp").
2820 Kernel Object Display, an embedded debugging feature which only worked with
2821 an obsolete version of Cisco IOS.
2823 The 'set download-write-size' and 'show download-write-size' commands.
2825 * New remote packets
2828 Tell a stub about GDB client features, and request remote target features.
2829 The first feature implemented is PacketSize, which allows the target to
2830 specify the size of packets it can handle - to minimize the number of
2831 packets required and improve performance when connected to a remote
2835 Fetch an OS auxilliary vector from the remote stub. This packet is a
2836 more efficient replacement for qPart:auxv:read.
2838 qXfer:memory-map:read:
2839 Fetch a memory map from the remote stub, including information about
2840 RAM, ROM, and flash memory devices.
2845 Erase and program a flash memory device.
2847 * Removed remote packets
2850 This packet has been replaced by qXfer:auxv:read. Only GDB 6.4 and 6.5
2851 used it, and only gdbserver implemented it.
2853 *** Changes in GDB 6.5
2857 Renesas M32C/M16C m32c-elf
2859 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2863 init-if-undefined Initialize a convenience variable, but
2864 only if it doesn't already have a value.
2866 The following commands are presently only implemented for native GNU/Linux:
2868 checkpoint Save a snapshot of the program state.
2870 restart <n> Return the program state to a
2871 previously saved state.
2873 info checkpoints List currently saved checkpoints.
2875 delete-checkpoint <n> Delete a previously saved checkpoint.
2877 set|show detach-on-fork Tell gdb whether to detach from a newly
2878 forked process, or to keep debugging it.
2880 info forks List forks of the user program that
2881 are available to be debugged.
2883 fork <n> Switch to debugging one of several
2884 forks of the user program that are
2885 available to be debugged.
2887 delete-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2888 that are available to be debugged (and
2889 kill the forked process).
2891 detach-fork <n> Delete a fork from the list of forks
2892 that are available to be debugged (and
2893 allow the process to continue).
2897 Morpho Technologies ms2 ms1-elf
2899 * Improved Windows host support
2901 GDB now builds as a cross debugger hosted on i686-mingw32, including
2902 native console support, and remote communications using either
2903 network sockets or serial ports.
2905 * Improved Modula-2 language support
2907 GDB can now print most types in the Modula-2 syntax. This includes:
2908 basic types, set types, record types, enumerated types, range types,
2909 pointer types and ARRAY types. Procedure var parameters are correctly
2910 printed and hexadecimal addresses and character constants are also
2911 written in the Modula-2 syntax. Best results can be obtained by using
2912 GNU Modula-2 together with the -gdwarf-2 command line option.
2916 The ARM rdi-share module.
2918 The Netware NLM debug server.
2920 *** Changes in GDB 6.4
2922 * New native configurations
2924 OpenBSD/arm arm*-*-openbsd*
2925 OpenBSD/mips64 mips64-*-openbsd*
2929 Morpho Technologies ms1 ms1-elf
2931 * New command line options
2933 --batch-silent As for --batch, but totally silent.
2934 --return-child-result The debugger will exist with the same value
2935 the child (debugged) program exited with.
2936 --eval-command COMMAND, -ex COMMAND
2937 Execute a single GDB CLI command. This may be
2938 specified multiple times and in conjunction
2939 with the --command (-x) option.
2941 * Deprecated commands removed
2943 The following commands, that were deprecated in 2000, have been
2947 set|show arm disassembly-flavor set|show arm disassembler
2948 othernames set arm disassembler
2949 set|show remotedebug set|show debug remote
2950 set|show archdebug set|show debug arch
2951 set|show eventdebug set|show debug event
2954 * New BSD user-level threads support
2956 It is now possible to debug programs using the user-level threads
2957 library on OpenBSD and FreeBSD. Currently supported (target)
2960 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
2961 FreeBSD/i386 i386-*-freebsd*
2962 OpenBSD/i386 i386-*-openbsd*
2964 Note that the new kernel threads libraries introduced in FreeBSD 5.x
2965 are not yet supported.
2967 * New support for Matsushita MN10300 w/sim added
2968 (Work in progress). mn10300-elf.
2970 * REMOVED configurations and files
2972 VxWorks and the XDR protocol *-*-vxworks
2973 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
2974 National Semiconductor NS32000 ns32k-*-*
2976 * New "set print array-indexes" command
2978 After turning this setting "on", GDB prints the index of each element
2979 when displaying arrays. The default is "off" to preserve the previous
2982 * VAX floating point support
2984 GDB now supports the not-quite-ieee VAX F and D floating point formats.
2986 * User-defined command support
2988 In addition to using $arg0..$arg9 for argument passing, it is now possible
2989 to use $argc to determine now many arguments have been passed. See the
2990 section on user-defined commands in the user manual for more information.
2992 *** Changes in GDB 6.3:
2994 * New command line option
2996 GDB now accepts -l followed by a number to set the timeout for remote
2999 * GDB works with GCC -feliminate-dwarf2-dups
3001 GDB now supports a more compact representation of DWARF-2 debug
3002 information using DW_FORM_ref_addr references. These are produced
3003 by GCC with the option -feliminate-dwarf2-dups and also by some
3004 proprietary compilers. With GCC, you must use GCC 3.3.4 or later
3005 to use -feliminate-dwarf2-dups.
3007 * Internationalization
3009 When supported by the host system, GDB will be built with
3010 internationalization (libintl). The task of marking up the sources is
3011 continued, we're looking forward to our first translation.
3015 Initial support for debugging programs compiled with the GNAT
3016 implementation of the Ada programming language has been integrated
3017 into GDB. In this release, support is limited to expression evaluation.
3019 * New native configurations
3021 GNU/Linux/m32r m32r-*-linux-gnu
3025 GDB's remote protocol now includes support for the 'p' packet. This
3026 packet is used to fetch individual registers from a remote inferior.
3028 * END-OF-LIFE registers[] compatibility module
3030 GDB's internal register infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3031 The new infrastructure making possible the implementation of key new
3032 features including 32x64 (e.g., 64-bit amd64 GDB debugging a 32-bit
3035 GDB 6.3 will be the last release to include the the registers[]
3036 compatibility module that allowed out-of-date configurations to
3037 continue to work. This change directly impacts the following
3047 powerpc bdm protocol
3049 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3050 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.4, and REMOVED from GDB 6.5.
3052 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3054 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3055 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3056 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3057 permanently REMOVED.
3066 *** Changes in GDB 6.2.1:
3068 * MIPS `break main; run' gave an heuristic-fence-post warning
3070 When attempting to run even a simple program, a warning about
3071 heuristic-fence-post being hit would be reported. This problem has
3074 * MIPS IRIX 'long double' crashed GDB
3076 When examining a long double variable, GDB would get a segmentation
3077 fault. The crash has been fixed (but GDB 6.2 cannot correctly examine
3078 IRIX long double values).
3082 A bug in the VAX stack code was causing problems with the "next"
3083 command. This problem has been fixed.
3085 *** Changes in GDB 6.2:
3087 * Fix for ``many threads''
3089 On GNU/Linux systems that use the NPTL threads library, a program
3090 rapidly creating and deleting threads would confuse GDB leading to the
3093 ptrace: No such process.
3094 thread_db_get_info: cannot get thread info: generic error
3096 This problem has been fixed.
3098 * "-async" and "-noasync" options removed.
3100 Support for the broken "-noasync" option has been removed (it caused
3103 * New ``start'' command.
3105 This command runs the program until the begining of the main procedure.
3107 * New BSD Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm) interface
3109 Using ``target kvm'' it is now possible to debug kernel core dumps and
3110 live kernel memory images on various FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD
3111 platforms. Currently supported (native-only) configurations are:
3113 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3114 FreeBSD/i386 i?86-*-freebsd*
3115 NetBSD/i386 i?86-*-netbsd*
3116 NetBSD/m68k m68*-*-netbsd*
3117 NetBSD/sparc sparc-*-netbsd*
3118 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3119 OpenBSD/i386 i?86-*-openbsd*
3120 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-openbsd*
3121 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3123 * Signal trampoline code overhauled
3125 Many generic problems with GDB's signal handling code have been fixed.
3126 These include: backtraces through non-contiguous stacks; recognition
3127 of sa_sigaction signal trampolines; backtrace from a NULL pointer
3128 call; backtrace through a signal trampoline; step into and out of
3129 signal handlers; and single-stepping in the signal trampoline.
3131 Please note that kernel bugs are a limiting factor here. These
3132 features have been shown to work on an s390 GNU/Linux system that
3133 include a 2.6.8-rc1 kernel. Ref PR breakpoints/1702.
3135 * Cygwin support for DWARF 2 added.
3137 * New native configurations
3139 GNU/Linux/hppa hppa*-*-linux*
3140 OpenBSD/hppa hppa*-*-openbsd*
3141 OpenBSD/m68k m68*-*-openbsd*
3142 OpenBSD/m88k m88*-*-openbsd*
3143 OpenBSD/powerpc powerpc-*-openbsd*
3144 NetBSD/vax vax-*-netbsd*
3145 OpenBSD/vax vax-*-openbsd*
3147 * END-OF-LIFE frame compatibility module
3149 GDB's internal frame infrastructure has been completely rewritten.
3150 The new infrastructure making it possible to support key new features
3151 including DWARF 2 Call Frame Information. To aid in the task of
3152 migrating old configurations to this new infrastructure, a
3153 compatibility module, that allowed old configurations to continue to
3154 work, was also included.
3156 GDB 6.2 will be the last release to include this frame compatibility
3157 module. This change directly impacts the following configurations:
3167 Unless there is activity to revive these configurations, they will be
3168 made OBSOLETE in GDB 6.3, and REMOVED from GDB 6.4.
3170 * REMOVED configurations and files
3172 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3173 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3174 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3175 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3176 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3177 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3178 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3179 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3180 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3181 sonymips mips-sony-*
3182 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3184 *** Changes in GDB 6.1.1:
3186 * TUI (Text-mode User Interface) built-in (also included in GDB 6.1)
3188 The TUI (Text-mode User Interface) is now built as part of a default
3189 GDB configuration. It is enabled by either selecting the TUI with the
3190 command line option "-i=tui" or by running the separate "gdbtui"
3191 program. For more information on the TUI, see the manual "Debugging
3194 * Pending breakpoint support (also included in GDB 6.1)
3196 Support has been added to allow you to specify breakpoints in shared
3197 libraries that have not yet been loaded. If a breakpoint location
3198 cannot be found, and the "breakpoint pending" option is set to auto,
3199 GDB queries you if you wish to make the breakpoint pending on a future
3200 shared-library load. If and when GDB resolves the breakpoint symbol,
3201 the pending breakpoint is removed as one or more regular breakpoints
3204 Pending breakpoints are very useful for GCJ Java debugging.
3206 * Fixed ISO-C build problems
3208 The files bfd/elf-bfd.h, gdb/dictionary.c and gdb/types.c contained
3209 non ISO-C code that stopped them being built using a more strict ISO-C
3210 compiler (e.g., IBM's C compiler).
3212 * Fixed build problem on IRIX 5
3214 Due to header problems with <sys/proc.h>, the file gdb/proc-api.c
3215 wasn't able to compile compile on an IRIX 5 system.
3217 * Added execute permission to gdb/gdbserver/configure
3219 The shell script gdb/testsuite/gdb.stabs/configure lacked execute
3220 permission. This bug would cause configure to fail on a number of
3221 systems (Solaris, IRIX). Ref: server/519.
3223 * Fixed build problem on hpux2.0w-hp-hpux11.00 using the HP ANSI C compiler
3225 Older HPUX ANSI C compilers did not accept variable array sizes. somsolib.c
3226 has been updated to use constant array sizes.
3228 * Fixed a panic in the DWARF Call Frame Info code on Solaris 2.7
3230 GCC 3.3.2, on Solaris 2.7, includes the DW_EH_PE_funcrel encoding in
3231 its generated DWARF Call Frame Info. This encoding was causing GDB to
3232 panic, that panic has been fixed. Ref: gdb/1628.
3234 * Fixed a problem when examining parameters in shared library code.
3236 When examining parameters in optimized shared library code generated
3237 by a mainline GCC, GDB would incorrectly report ``Variable "..." is
3238 not available''. GDB now correctly displays the variable's value.
3240 *** Changes in GDB 6.1:
3242 * Removed --with-mmalloc
3244 Support for the mmalloc memory manager has been removed, as it
3245 conflicted with the internal gdb byte cache.
3247 * Changes in AMD64 configurations
3249 The AMD64 target now includes the %cs and %ss registers. As a result
3250 the AMD64 remote protocol has changed; this affects the floating-point
3251 and SSE registers. If you rely on those registers for your debugging,
3252 you should upgrade gdbserver on the remote side.
3254 * Revised SPARC target
3256 The SPARC target has been completely revised, incorporating the
3257 FreeBSD/sparc64 support that was added for GDB 6.0. As a result
3258 support for LynxOS and SunOS 4 has been dropped. Calling functions
3259 from within GDB on operating systems with a non-executable stack
3260 (Solaris, OpenBSD) now works.
3264 GDB has a new C++ demangler which does a better job on the mangled
3265 names generated by current versions of g++. It also runs faster, so
3266 with this and other changes gdb should now start faster on large C++
3269 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3271 GDB support for location expressions has been extended to support function
3272 arguments and frame bases. Older versions of GDB could crash when they
3275 * C++ nested types and namespaces
3277 GDB's support for nested types and namespaces in C++ has been
3278 improved, especially if you use the DWARF 2 debugging format. (This
3279 is the default for recent versions of GCC on most platforms.)
3280 Specifically, if you have a class "Inner" defined within a class or
3281 namespace "Outer", then GDB realizes that the class's name is
3282 "Outer::Inner", not simply "Inner". This should greatly reduce the
3283 frequency of complaints about not finding RTTI symbols. In addition,
3284 if you are stopped at inside of a function defined within a namespace,
3285 GDB modifies its name lookup accordingly.
3287 * New native configurations
3289 NetBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-netbsd*
3290 OpenBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-openbsd*
3291 OpenBSD/alpha alpha*-*-openbsd*
3292 OpenBSD/sparc sparc-*-openbsd*
3293 OpenBSD/sparc64 sparc64-*-openbsd*
3295 * New debugging protocols
3297 M32R with SDI protocol m32r-*-elf*
3299 * "set prompt-escape-char" command deleted.
3301 The command "set prompt-escape-char" has been deleted. This command,
3302 and its very obscure effet on GDB's prompt, was never documented,
3303 tested, nor mentioned in the NEWS file.
3305 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3307 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3308 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3309 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3310 permanently REMOVED.
3312 Sun 3, running SunOS 3 m68*-*-sunos3*
3313 Sun 3, running SunOS 4 m68*-*-sunos4*
3314 Sun 2, running SunOS 3 m68000-*-sunos3*
3315 Sun 2, running SunOS 4 m68000-*-sunos4*
3316 Motorola 680x0 running LynxOS m68*-*-lynxos*
3317 AT&T 3b1/Unix pc m68*-att-*
3318 Bull DPX2 (68k, System V release 3) m68*-bull-sysv*
3319 decstation mips-dec-* mips-little-*
3320 riscos mips-*-riscos* mips-*-sysv*
3321 sonymips mips-sony-*
3322 sysv mips*-*-sysv4* (IRIX 5/6 not included)
3324 * REMOVED configurations and files
3326 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
3327 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
3328 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3329 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3330 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3331 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3332 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3333 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3334 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3335 386BSD i[3456]86-*-bsd*
3336 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3337 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3338 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3339 SPARC running LynxOS sparc-*-lynxos*
3340 SPARC running SunOS 4 sparc-*-sunos4*
3341 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3342 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3344 *** Changes in GDB 6.0:
3348 Support for debugging the Objective-C programming language has been
3349 integrated into GDB.
3351 * New backtrace mechanism (includes DWARF 2 Call Frame Information).
3353 DWARF 2's Call Frame Information makes available compiler generated
3354 information that more exactly describes the program's run-time stack.
3355 By using this information, GDB is able to provide more robust stack
3358 The i386, amd64 (nee, x86-64), Alpha, m68hc11, ia64, and m32r targets
3359 have been updated to use a new backtrace mechanism which includes
3360 DWARF 2 CFI support.
3364 GDB's remote protocol has been extended to include support for hosted
3365 file I/O (where the remote target uses GDB's file system). See GDB's
3366 remote protocol documentation for details.
3368 * All targets using the new architecture framework.
3370 All of GDB's targets have been updated to use the new internal
3371 architecture framework. The way is now open for future GDB releases
3372 to include cross-architecture native debugging support (i386 on amd64,
3375 * GNU/Linux's Thread Local Storage (TLS)
3377 GDB now includes support for for the GNU/Linux implementation of
3378 per-thread variables.
3380 * GNU/Linux's Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL)
3382 GDB's thread code has been updated to work with either the new
3383 GNU/Linux NPTL thread library or the older "LinuxThreads" library.
3385 * Separate debug info.
3387 GDB, in conjunction with BINUTILS, now supports a mechanism for
3388 automatically loading debug information from a separate file. Instead
3389 of shipping full debug and non-debug versions of system libraries,
3390 system integrators can now instead ship just the stripped libraries
3391 and optional debug files.
3393 * DWARF 2 Location Expressions
3395 DWARF 2 Location Expressions allow the compiler to more completely
3396 describe the location of variables (even in optimized code) to the
3399 GDB now includes preliminary support for location expressions (support
3400 for DW_OP_piece is still missing).
3404 A number of long standing bugs that caused GDB to die while starting a
3405 Java application have been fixed. GDB's Java support is now
3406 considered "useable".
3408 * GNU/Linux support for fork, vfork, and exec.
3410 The "catch fork", "catch exec", "catch vfork", and "set follow-fork-mode"
3411 commands are now implemented for GNU/Linux. They require a 2.5.x or later
3414 * GDB supports logging output to a file
3416 There are two new commands, "set logging" and "show logging", which can be
3417 used to capture GDB's output to a file.
3419 * The meaning of "detach" has changed for gdbserver
3421 The "detach" command will now resume the application, as documented. To
3422 disconnect from gdbserver and leave it stopped, use the new "disconnect"
3425 * d10v, m68hc11 `regs' command deprecated
3427 The `info registers' command has been updated so that it displays the
3428 registers using a format identical to the old `regs' command.
3432 A new command, "maint set profile on/off", has been added. This command can
3433 be used to enable or disable profiling while running GDB, to profile a
3434 session or a set of commands. In addition there is a new configure switch,
3435 "--enable-profiling", which will cause GDB to be compiled with profiling
3436 data, for more informative profiling results.
3438 * Default MI syntax changed to "mi2".
3440 The default MI (machine interface) syntax, enabled by the command line
3441 option "-i=mi", has been changed to "mi2". The previous MI syntax,
3442 "mi1", can be enabled by specifying the option "-i=mi1".
3444 Support for the original "mi0" syntax (included in GDB 5.0) has been
3447 Fix for gdb/192: removed extraneous space when displaying frame level.
3448 Fix for gdb/672: update changelist is now output in mi list format.
3449 Fix for gdb/702: a -var-assign that updates the value now shows up
3450 in a subsequent -var-update.
3452 * New native configurations.
3454 FreeBSD/amd64 x86_64-*-freebsd*
3456 * Multi-arched targets.
3458 HP/PA HPUX11 hppa*-*-hpux*
3459 Renesas M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
3461 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3463 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3464 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3465 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3466 permanently REMOVED.
3468 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
3469 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
3470 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
3471 HP/PA running BSD hppa*-*-bsd*
3472 HP/PA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
3473 HP/PA Pro target hppa*-*-pro*
3474 PMAX (MIPS) running Mach 3.0 mips*-*-mach3*
3475 Sequent family i[3456]86-sequent-sysv4*
3476 i[3456]86-sequent-sysv*
3477 i[3456]86-sequent-bsd*
3478 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
3479 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
3481 * REMOVED configurations and files
3484 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3485 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3486 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3487 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3488 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3489 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3491 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3492 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3493 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3494 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3495 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3496 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3498 * MIPS $fp behavior changed
3500 The convenience variable $fp, for the MIPS, now consistently returns
3501 the address of the current frame's base. Previously, depending on the
3502 context, $fp could refer to either $sp or the current frame's base
3503 address. See ``8.10 Registers'' in the manual ``Debugging with GDB:
3504 The GNU Source-Level Debugger''.
3506 *** Changes in GDB 5.3:
3508 * GNU/Linux shared library multi-threaded performance improved.
3510 When debugging a multi-threaded application on GNU/Linux, GDB now uses
3511 `/proc', in preference to `ptrace' for memory reads. This may result
3512 in an improvement in the start-up time of multi-threaded, shared
3513 library applications when run under GDB. One GDB user writes: ``loads
3514 shared libs like mad''.
3516 * ``gdbserver'' now supports multi-threaded applications on some targets
3518 Support for debugging multi-threaded applications which use
3519 the GNU/Linux LinuxThreads package has been added for
3520 arm*-*-linux*-gnu*, i[3456]86-*-linux*-gnu*, mips*-*-linux*-gnu*,
3521 powerpc*-*-linux*-gnu*, and sh*-*-linux*-gnu*.
3523 * GDB now supports C/C++ preprocessor macros.
3525 GDB now expands preprocessor macro invocations in C/C++ expressions,
3526 and provides various commands for showing macro definitions and how
3529 The new command `macro expand EXPRESSION' expands any macro
3530 invocations in expression, and shows the result.
3532 The new command `show macro MACRO-NAME' shows the definition of the
3533 macro named MACRO-NAME, and where it was defined.
3535 Most compilers don't include information about macros in the debugging
3536 information by default. In GCC 3.1, for example, you need to compile
3537 your program with the options `-gdwarf-2 -g3'. If the macro
3538 information is present in the executable, GDB will read it.
3540 * Multi-arched targets.
3542 DEC Alpha (partial) alpha*-*-*
3543 DEC VAX (partial) vax-*-*
3545 National Semiconductor NS32000 (partial) ns32k-*-*
3546 Motorola 68000 (partial) m68k-*-*
3547 Motorola MCORE mcore-*-*
3551 Fujitsu FRV architecture added by Red Hat frv*-*-*
3554 * New native configurations
3556 Alpha NetBSD alpha*-*-netbsd*
3557 SH NetBSD sh*-*-netbsdelf*
3558 MIPS NetBSD mips*-*-netbsd*
3559 UltraSPARC NetBSD sparc64-*-netbsd*
3561 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3563 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3564 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3565 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3566 permanently REMOVED.
3568 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
3569 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
3570 IBM AIX PS/2 i[3456]86-*-aix
3571 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
3572 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
3573 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
3574 i386 running Mach 3.0 i[3456]86-*-mach3*
3575 i386 running Mach i[3456]86-*-mach*
3576 i386 running OSF/1 i[3456]86-*osf1mk*
3577 HP/Apollo 68k Family m68*-apollo*-sysv*,
3579 m68*-hp-bsd*, m68*-hp-hpux*
3580 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
3582 * OBSOLETE languages
3584 CHILL, a Pascal like language used by telecommunications companies.
3586 * REMOVED configurations and files
3588 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3589 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3590 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3591 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3592 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3594 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3596 * New command "set max-user-call-depth <nnn>"
3598 This command allows the user to limit the call depth of user-defined
3599 commands. The default is 1024.
3601 * Changes in FreeBSD/i386 native debugging.
3603 Support for the "generate-core-file" has been added.
3605 * New commands "dump", "append", and "restore".
3607 These commands allow data to be copied from target memory
3608 to a bfd-format or binary file (dump and append), and back
3609 from a file into memory (restore).
3611 * Improved "next/step" support on multi-processor Alpha Tru64.
3613 The previous single-step mechanism could cause unpredictable problems,
3614 including the random appearance of SIGSEGV or SIGTRAP signals. The use
3615 of a software single-step mechanism prevents this.
3617 *** Changes in GDB 5.2.1:
3625 gdb/182: gdb/323: gdb/237: On alpha, gdb was reporting:
3626 mdebugread.c:2443: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_data not initialized
3627 Fix, by Joel Brobecker imported from mainline.
3629 gdb/439: gdb/291: On some ELF object files, gdb was reporting:
3630 dwarf2read.c:1072: gdb-internal-error: sect_index_text not initialize
3631 Fix, by Fred Fish, imported from mainline.
3633 Dwarf2 .debug_frame & .eh_frame handler improved in many ways.
3634 Surprisingly enough, it works now.
3635 By Michal Ludvig, imported from mainline.
3637 i386 hardware watchpoint support:
3638 avoid misses on second run for some targets.
3639 By Pierre Muller, imported from mainline.
3641 *** Changes in GDB 5.2:
3643 * New command "set trust-readonly-sections on[off]".
3645 This command is a hint that tells gdb that read-only sections
3646 really are read-only (ie. that their contents will not change).
3647 In this mode, gdb will go to the object file rather than the
3648 target to read memory from read-only sections (such as ".text").
3649 This can be a significant performance improvement on some
3650 (notably embedded) targets.
3652 * New command "generate-core-file" (or "gcore").
3654 This new gdb command allows the user to drop a core file of the child
3655 process state at any time. So far it's been implemented only for
3656 GNU/Linux and Solaris, but should be relatively easily ported to other
3657 hosts. Argument is core file name (defaults to core.<pid>).
3659 * New command line option
3661 GDB now accepts --pid or -p followed by a process id.
3663 * Change in command line behavior -- corefiles vs. process ids.
3665 There is a subtle behavior in the way in which GDB handles
3666 command line arguments. The first non-flag argument is always
3667 a program to debug, but the second non-flag argument may either
3668 be a corefile or a process id. Previously, GDB would attempt to
3669 open the second argument as a corefile, and if that failed, would
3670 issue a superfluous error message and then attempt to attach it as
3671 a process. Now, if the second argument begins with a non-digit,
3672 it will be treated as a corefile. If it begins with a digit,
3673 GDB will attempt to attach it as a process, and if no such process
3674 is found, will then attempt to open it as a corefile.
3676 * Changes in ARM configurations.
3678 Multi-arch support is enabled for all ARM configurations. The ARM/NetBSD
3679 configuration is fully multi-arch.
3681 * New native configurations
3683 ARM NetBSD arm*-*-netbsd*
3684 x86 OpenBSD i[3456]86-*-openbsd*
3685 AMD x86-64 running GNU/Linux x86_64-*-linux-*
3686 Sparc64 running FreeBSD sparc64-*-freebsd*
3690 Sanyo XStormy16 xstormy16-elf
3692 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3694 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3695 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3696 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3697 permanently REMOVED.
3699 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi, udi29k
3700 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
3701 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
3702 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
3703 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
3705 testsuite/gdb.hp/gdb.threads-hp/ directory
3707 * REMOVED configurations and files
3709 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3711 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3712 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3713 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3714 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3715 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3716 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3717 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3718 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3719 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3720 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3721 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host and target N/A host, powerpc-*-macos*
3723 * Changes to command line processing
3725 The new `--args' feature can be used to specify command-line arguments
3726 for the inferior from gdb's command line.
3728 * Changes to key bindings
3730 There is a new `operate-and-get-next' function bound to `C-o'.
3732 *** Changes in GDB 5.1.1
3734 Fix compile problem on DJGPP.
3736 Fix a problem with floating-point registers on the i386 being
3739 Fix to stop GDB crashing on .debug_str debug info.
3741 Numerous documentation fixes.
3743 Numerous testsuite fixes.
3745 *** Changes in GDB 5.1:
3747 * New native configurations
3749 Alpha FreeBSD alpha*-*-freebsd*
3750 x86 FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x i[3456]86*-freebsd[34]*
3751 MIPS GNU/Linux mips*-*-linux*
3752 MIPS SGI Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
3753 ia64 AIX ia64-*-aix*
3754 s390 and s390x GNU/Linux {s390,s390x}-*-linux*
3758 Motorola 68HC11 and 68HC12 m68hc11-elf
3760 UltraSparc running GNU/Linux sparc64-*-linux*
3762 * OBSOLETE configurations and files
3764 x86 FreeBSD before 2.2 i[3456]86*-freebsd{1,2.[01]}*,
3765 Harris/CXUX m88k m88*-harris-cxux*
3766 Most ns32k hosts and targets ns32k-*-mach3* ns32k-umax-*
3767 ns32k-utek-sysv* ns32k-utek-*
3768 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
3770 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1 a29k-nyu-sym1 a29k-*-kern*
3771 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
3772 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
3773 PowerPC Netware powerpc-*-netware*
3774 SunOS 4.0.Xi on i386 i[3456]86-*-sunos*
3775 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x m68*-sony-sysv news
3776 ISI Optimum V (3.05) under 4.3bsd. m68*-isi-*
3777 Apple Macintosh (MPW) host N/A
3779 stuff.c (Program to stuff files into a specially prepared space in kdb)
3780 kdb-start.c (Main loop for the standalone kernel debugger)
3782 Configurations that have been declared obsolete in this release have
3783 been commented out. Unless there is activity to revive these
3784 configurations, the next release of GDB will have their sources
3785 permanently REMOVED.
3787 * REMOVED configurations and files
3789 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
3790 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
3792 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
3796 * GDB has been converted to ISO C.
3798 GDB's source code has been converted to ISO C. In particular, the
3799 sources are fully protoized, and rely on standard headers being
3804 * "info symbol" works on platforms which use COFF, ECOFF, XCOFF, and NLM.
3806 * The MI enabled by default.
3808 The new machine oriented interface (MI) introduced in GDB 5.0 has been
3809 revised and enabled by default. Packages which use GDB as a debugging
3810 engine behind a UI or another front end are encouraged to switch to
3811 using the GDB/MI interface, instead of the old annotations interface
3812 which is now deprecated.
3814 * Support for debugging Pascal programs.
3816 GDB now includes support for debugging Pascal programs. The following
3817 main features are supported:
3819 - Pascal-specific data types such as sets;
3821 - automatic recognition of Pascal sources based on file-name
3824 - Pascal-style display of data types, variables, and functions;
3826 - a Pascal expression parser.
3828 However, some important features are not yet supported.
3830 - Pascal string operations are not supported at all;
3832 - there are some problems with boolean types;
3834 - Pascal type hexadecimal constants are not supported
3835 because they conflict with the internal variables format;
3837 - support for Pascal objects and classes is not full yet;
3839 - unlike Pascal, GDB is case-sensitive for symbol names.
3841 * Changes in completion.
3843 Commands such as `shell', `run' and `set args', which pass arguments
3844 to inferior programs, now complete on file names, similar to what
3845 users expect at the shell prompt.
3847 Commands which accept locations, such as `disassemble', `print',
3848 `breakpoint', `until', etc. now complete on filenames as well as
3849 program symbols. Thus, if you type "break foob TAB", and the source
3850 files linked into the programs include `foobar.c', that file name will
3851 be one of the candidates for completion. However, file names are not
3852 considered for completion after you typed a colon that delimits a file
3853 name from a name of a function in that file, as in "break foo.c:bar".
3855 `set demangle-style' completes on available demangling styles.
3857 * New platform-independent commands:
3859 It is now possible to define a post-hook for a command as well as a
3860 hook that runs before the command. For more details, see the
3861 documentation of `hookpost' in the GDB manual.
3863 * Changes in GNU/Linux native debugging.
3865 Support for debugging multi-threaded programs has been completely
3866 revised for all platforms except m68k and sparc. You can now debug as
3867 many threads as your system allows you to have.
3869 Attach/detach is supported for multi-threaded programs.
3871 Support for SSE registers was added for x86. This doesn't work for
3872 multi-threaded programs though.
3874 * Changes in MIPS configurations.
3876 Multi-arch support is enabled for all MIPS configurations.
3878 GDB can now be built as native debugger on SGI Irix 6.x systems for
3879 debugging n32 executables. (Debugging 64-bit executables is not yet
3882 * Unified support for hardware watchpoints in all x86 configurations.
3884 Most (if not all) native x86 configurations support hardware-assisted
3885 breakpoints and watchpoints in a unified manner. This support
3886 implements debug register sharing between watchpoints, which allows to
3887 put a virtually infinite number of watchpoints on the same address,
3888 and also supports watching regions up to 16 bytes with several debug
3891 The new maintenance command `maintenance show-debug-regs' toggles
3892 debugging print-outs in functions that insert, remove, and test
3893 watchpoints and hardware breakpoints.
3895 * Changes in the DJGPP native configuration.
3897 New command ``info dos sysinfo'' displays assorted information about
3898 the CPU, OS, memory, and DPMI server.
3900 New commands ``info dos gdt'', ``info dos ldt'', and ``info dos idt''
3901 display information about segment descriptors stored in GDT, LDT, and
3904 New commands ``info dos pde'' and ``info dos pte'' display entries
3905 from Page Directory and Page Tables (for now works with CWSDPMI only).
3906 New command ``info dos address-pte'' displays the Page Table entry for
3907 a given linear address.
3909 GDB can now pass command lines longer than 126 characters to the
3910 program being debugged (requires an update to the libdbg.a library
3911 which is part of the DJGPP development kit).
3913 DWARF2 debug info is now supported.
3915 It is now possible to `step' and `next' through calls to `longjmp'.
3917 * Changes in documentation.
3919 All GDB documentation was converted to GFDL, the GNU Free
3920 Documentation License.
3922 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3925 TUI, the Text-mode User Interface, is now documented in the manual.
3927 Tracepoints-related commands are now fully documented in the GDB
3930 The "GDB Internals" manual now has an index. It also includes
3931 documentation of `ui_out' functions, GDB coding standards, x86
3932 hardware watchpoints, and memory region attributes.
3934 * GDB's version number moved to ``version.in''
3936 The Makefile variable VERSION has been replaced by the file
3937 ``version.in''. People creating GDB distributions should update the
3938 contents of this file.
3942 GUD support is now a standard part of the EMACS distribution.
3944 *** Changes in GDB 5.0:
3946 * Improved support for debugging FP programs on x86 targets
3948 Unified and much-improved support for debugging floating-point
3949 programs on all x86 targets. In particular, ``info float'' now
3950 displays the FP registers in the same format on all x86 targets, with
3951 greater level of detail.
3953 * Improvements and bugfixes in hardware-assisted watchpoints
3955 It is now possible to watch array elements, struct members, and
3956 bitfields with hardware-assisted watchpoints. Data-read watchpoints
3957 on x86 targets no longer erroneously trigger when the address is
3960 * Improvements in the native DJGPP version of GDB
3962 The distribution now includes all the scripts and auxiliary files
3963 necessary to build the native DJGPP version on MS-DOS/MS-Windows
3964 machines ``out of the box''.
3966 The DJGPP version can now debug programs that use signals. It is
3967 possible to catch signals that happened in the debuggee, deliver
3968 signals to it, interrupt it with Ctrl-C, etc. (Previously, a signal
3969 would kill the program being debugged.) Programs that hook hardware
3970 interrupts (keyboard, timer, etc.) can also be debugged.
3972 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that redirect their
3973 standard handles or switch them to raw (as opposed to cooked) mode, or
3974 even close them. The command ``run < foo > bar'' works as expected,
3975 and ``info terminal'' reports useful information about the debuggee's
3976 terminal, including raw/cooked mode, redirection, etc.
3978 The DJGPP version now uses termios functions for console I/O, which
3979 enables debugging graphics programs. Interrupting GDB with Ctrl-C
3982 DOS-style file names with drive letters are now fully supported by
3985 It is now possible to debug DJGPP programs that switch their working
3986 directory. It is also possible to rerun the debuggee any number of
3987 times without restarting GDB; thus, you can use the same setup,
3988 breakpoints, etc. for many debugging sessions.
3990 * New native configurations
3992 ARM GNU/Linux arm*-*-linux*
3993 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
3997 Motorola MCore mcore-*-*
3998 x86 VxWorks i[3456]86-*-vxworks*
3999 PowerPC VxWorks powerpc-*-vxworks*
4000 TI TMS320C80 tic80-*-*
4002 * OBSOLETE configurations
4004 Altos 3068 m68*-altos-*
4005 Convex c1-*-*, c2-*-*
4007 ARM RISCix arm-*-* (as host)
4010 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4011 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4012 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4013 be permanently REMOVED.
4015 * Gould support removed
4017 Support for the Gould PowerNode and NP1 has been removed.
4019 * New features for SVR4
4021 On SVR4 native platforms (such as Solaris), if you attach to a process
4022 without first loading a symbol file, GDB will now attempt to locate and
4023 load symbols from the running process's executable file.
4025 * Many C++ enhancements
4027 C++ support has been greatly improved. Overload resolution now works properly
4028 in almost all cases. RTTI support is on the way.
4030 * Remote targets can connect to a sub-program
4032 A popen(3) style serial-device has been added. This device starts a
4033 sub-process (such as a stand-alone simulator) and then communicates
4034 with that. The sub-program to run is specified using the syntax
4035 ``|<program> <args>'' vis:
4037 (gdb) set remotedebug 1
4038 (gdb) target extended-remote |mn10300-elf-sim program-args
4040 * MIPS 64 remote protocol
4042 A long standing bug in the mips64 remote protocol where by GDB
4043 expected certain 32 bit registers (ex SR) to be transfered as 32
4044 instead of 64 bits has been fixed.
4046 The command ``set remote-mips64-transfers-32bit-regs on'' has been
4047 added to provide backward compatibility with older versions of GDB.
4049 * ``set remotebinarydownload'' replaced by ``set remote X-packet''
4051 The command ``set remotebinarydownload'' command has been replaced by
4052 ``set remote X-packet''. Other commands in ``set remote'' family
4053 include ``set remote P-packet''.
4055 * Breakpoint commands accept ranges.
4057 The breakpoint commands ``enable'', ``disable'', and ``delete'' now
4058 accept a range of breakpoints, e.g. ``5-7''. The tracepoint command
4059 ``tracepoint passcount'' also accepts a range of tracepoints.
4061 * ``apropos'' command added.
4063 The ``apropos'' command searches through command names and
4064 documentation strings, printing out matches, making it much easier to
4065 try to find a command that does what you are looking for.
4069 A new machine oriented interface (MI) has been added to GDB. This
4070 interface is designed for debug environments running GDB as a separate
4071 process. This is part of the long term libGDB project. See the
4072 "GDB/MI" chapter of the GDB manual for further information. It can be
4073 enabled by configuring with:
4075 .../configure --enable-gdbmi
4077 *** Changes in GDB-4.18:
4079 * New native configurations
4081 HP-UX 10.20 hppa*-*-hpux10.20
4082 HP-UX 11.x hppa*-*-hpux11.0*
4083 M68K GNU/Linux m68*-*-linux*
4087 Fujitsu FR30 fr30-*-elf*
4088 Intel StrongARM strongarm-*-*
4089 Mitsubishi D30V d30v-*-*
4091 * OBSOLETE configurations
4093 Gould PowerNode, NP1 np1-*-*, pn-*-*
4095 Configurations that have been declared obsolete will be commented out,
4096 but the code will be left in place. If there is no activity to revive
4097 these configurations before the next release of GDB, the sources will
4098 be permanently REMOVED.
4102 As a compatibility experiment, GDB's source files buildsym.h and
4103 buildsym.c have been converted to pure standard C, no longer
4104 containing any K&R compatibility code. We believe that all systems in
4105 use today either come with a standard C compiler, or have a GCC port
4106 available. If this is not true, please report the affected
4107 configuration to bug-gdb@gnu.org immediately. See the README file for
4108 information about getting a standard C compiler if you don't have one
4113 GDB now uses readline 2.2.
4115 * set extension-language
4117 You can now control the mapping between filename extensions and source
4118 languages by using the `set extension-language' command. For instance,
4119 you can ask GDB to treat .c files as C++ by saying
4120 set extension-language .c c++
4121 The command `info extensions' lists all of the recognized extensions
4122 and their associated languages.
4124 * Setting processor type for PowerPC and RS/6000
4126 When GDB is configured for a powerpc*-*-* or an rs6000*-*-* target,
4127 you can use the `set processor' command to specify what variant of the
4128 PowerPC family you are debugging. The command
4132 sets the PowerPC/RS6000 variant to NAME. GDB knows about the
4133 following PowerPC and RS6000 variants:
4135 ppc-uisa PowerPC UISA - a PPC processor as viewed by user-level code
4136 rs6000 IBM RS6000 ("POWER") architecture, user-level view
4138 403GC IBM PowerPC 403GC
4139 505 Motorola PowerPC 505
4140 860 Motorola PowerPC 860 or 850
4141 601 Motorola PowerPC 601
4142 602 Motorola PowerPC 602
4143 603 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 603 or 603e
4144 604 Motorola PowerPC 604 or 604e
4145 750 Motorola/IBM PowerPC 750 or 750
4147 At the moment, this command just tells GDB what to name the
4148 special-purpose processor registers. Since almost all the affected
4149 registers are inaccessible to user-level programs, this command is
4150 only useful for remote debugging in its present form.
4154 Thanks to a major code donation from Hewlett-Packard, GDB now has much
4155 more extensive support for HP-UX. Added features include shared
4156 library support, kernel threads and hardware watchpoints for 11.00,
4157 support for HP's ANSI C and C++ compilers, and a compatibility mode
4158 for xdb and dbx commands.
4162 HP's donation includes the new concept of catchpoints, which is a
4163 generalization of the old catch command. On HP-UX, it is now possible
4164 to catch exec, fork, and vfork, as well as library loading.
4166 This means that the existing catch command has changed; its first
4167 argument now specifies the type of catch to be set up. See the
4168 output of "help catch" for a list of catchpoint types.
4170 * Debugging across forks
4172 On HP-UX, you can choose which process to debug when a fork() happens
4177 HP has donated a curses-based terminal user interface (TUI). To get
4178 it, build with --enable-tui. Although this can be enabled for any
4179 configuration, at present it only works for native HP debugging.
4181 * GDB remote protocol additions
4183 A new protocol packet 'X' that writes binary data is now available.
4184 Default behavior is to try 'X', then drop back to 'M' if the stub
4185 fails to respond. The settable variable `remotebinarydownload'
4186 allows explicit control over the use of 'X'.
4188 For 64-bit targets, the memory packets ('M' and 'm') can now contain a
4189 full 64-bit address. The command
4191 set remoteaddresssize 32
4193 can be used to revert to the old behaviour. For existing remote stubs
4194 the change should not be noticed, as the additional address information
4197 In order to assist in debugging stubs, you may use the maintenance
4198 command `packet' to send any text string to the stub. For instance,
4200 maint packet heythere
4202 sends the packet "$heythere#<checksum>". Note that it is very easy to
4203 disrupt a debugging session by sending the wrong packet at the wrong
4206 The compare-sections command allows you to compare section data on the
4207 target to what is in the executable file without uploading or
4208 downloading, by comparing CRC checksums.
4210 * Tracing can collect general expressions
4212 You may now collect general expressions at tracepoints. This requires
4213 further additions to the target-side stub; see tracepoint.c and
4214 doc/agentexpr.texi for further details.
4216 * mask-address variable for Mips
4218 For Mips targets, you may control the zeroing of the upper 32 bits of
4219 a 64-bit address by entering `set mask-address on'. This is mainly
4220 of interest to users of embedded R4xxx and R5xxx processors.
4222 * Higher serial baud rates
4224 GDB's serial code now allows you to specify baud rates 57600, 115200,
4225 230400, and 460800 baud. (Note that your host system may not be able
4226 to achieve all of these rates.)
4230 The i960 configuration now includes an initial implementation of a
4231 builtin simulator, contributed by Jim Wilson.
4234 *** Changes in GDB-4.17:
4236 * New native configurations
4238 Alpha GNU/Linux alpha*-*-linux*
4239 Unixware 2.x i[3456]86-unixware2*
4240 Irix 6.x mips*-sgi-irix6*
4241 PowerPC GNU/Linux powerpc-*-linux*
4242 PowerPC Solaris powerpcle-*-solaris*
4243 Sparc GNU/Linux sparc-*-linux*
4244 Motorola sysV68 R3V7.1 m68k-motorola-sysv
4248 Argonaut Risc Chip (ARC) arc-*-*
4249 Hitachi H8/300S h8300*-*-*
4250 Matsushita MN10200 w/simulator mn10200-*-*
4251 Matsushita MN10300 w/simulator mn10300-*-*
4252 MIPS NEC VR4100 mips64*vr4100*{,el}-*-elf*
4253 MIPS NEC VR5000 mips64*vr5000*{,el}-*-elf*
4254 MIPS Toshiba TX39 mips64*tx39*{,el}-*-elf*
4255 Mitsubishi D10V w/simulator d10v-*-*
4256 Mitsubishi M32R/D w/simulator m32r-*-elf*
4257 Tsqware Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4258 NEC V850 w/simulator v850-*-*
4260 * New debugging protocols
4262 ARM with RDI protocol arm*-*-*
4263 M68K with dBUG monitor m68*-*-{aout,coff,elf}
4264 DDB and LSI variants of PMON protocol mips*-*-*
4265 PowerPC with DINK32 monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4266 PowerPC with SDS protocol powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4267 Macraigor OCD (Wiggler) devices powerpc{,le}-*-eabi
4271 All configurations can now understand and use the DWARF 2 debugging
4272 format. The choice is automatic, if the symbol file contains DWARF 2
4277 GDB now includes basic Java language support. This support is
4278 only useful with Java compilers that produce native machine code.
4280 * solib-absolute-prefix and solib-search-path
4282 For SunOS and SVR4 shared libraries, you may now set the prefix for
4283 loading absolute shared library symbol files, and the search path for
4284 locating non-absolute shared library symbol files.
4286 * Live range splitting
4288 GDB can now effectively debug code for which GCC has performed live
4289 range splitting as part of its optimization. See gdb/doc/LRS for
4290 more details on the expected format of the stabs information.
4294 GDB's support for the GNU Hurd, including thread debugging, has been
4295 updated to work with current versions of the Hurd.
4299 GDB's ARM target configuration now handles the ARM7T (Thumb) 16-bit
4300 instruction set. ARM GDB automatically detects when Thumb
4301 instructions are in use, and adjusts disassembly and backtracing
4306 GDB's MIPS target configurations now handle the MIP16 16-bit
4311 GDB now includes support for overlays; if an executable has been
4312 linked such that multiple sections are based at the same address, GDB
4313 will decide which section to use for symbolic info. You can choose to
4314 control the decision manually, using overlay commands, or implement
4315 additional target-side support and use "overlay load-target" to bring
4316 in the overlay mapping. Do "help overlay" for more detail.
4320 The command "info symbol <address>" displays information about
4321 the symbol at the specified address.
4325 The standard remote protocol now includes an extension that allows
4326 asynchronous collection and display of trace data. This requires
4327 extensive support in the target-side debugging stub. Tracing mode
4328 includes a new interaction mode in GDB and new commands: see the
4329 file tracepoint.c for more details.
4333 Configurations for embedded MIPS now include a simulator contributed
4334 by Cygnus Solutions. The simulator supports the instruction sets
4335 of most MIPS variants.
4339 Sparc configurations may now include the ERC32 simulator contributed
4340 by the European Space Agency. The simulator is not built into
4341 Sparc targets by default; configure with --enable-sim to include it.
4345 For target configurations that may include multiple variants of a
4346 basic architecture (such as MIPS and SH), you may now set the
4347 architecture explicitly. "set arch" sets, "info arch" lists
4348 the possible architectures.
4350 *** Changes in GDB-4.16:
4352 * New native configurations
4354 Windows 95, x86 Windows NT i[345]86-*-cygwin32
4355 M68K NetBSD m68k-*-netbsd*
4356 PowerPC AIX 4.x powerpc-*-aix*
4357 PowerPC MacOS powerpc-*-macos*
4358 PowerPC Windows NT powerpcle-*-cygwin32
4359 RS/6000 AIX 4.x rs6000-*-aix4*
4363 ARM with RDP protocol arm-*-*
4364 I960 with MON960 i960-*-coff
4365 MIPS VxWorks mips*-*-vxworks*
4366 MIPS VR4300 with PMON mips64*vr4300{,el}-*-elf*
4367 PowerPC with PPCBUG monitor powerpc{,le}-*-eabi*
4369 Matra Sparclet sparclet-*-*
4373 The powerpc-eabi configuration now includes the PSIM simulator,
4374 contributed by Andrew Cagney, with assistance from Mike Meissner.
4375 PSIM is a very elaborate model of the PowerPC, including not only
4376 basic instruction set execution, but also details of execution unit
4377 performance and I/O hardware. See sim/ppc/README for more details.
4381 GDB now works with Solaris 2.5.
4383 * Windows 95/NT native
4385 GDB will now work as a native debugger on Windows 95 and Windows NT.
4386 To build it from source, you must use the "gnu-win32" environment,
4387 which uses a DLL to emulate enough of Unix to run the GNU tools.
4388 Further information, binaries, and sources are available at
4389 ftp.cygnus.com, under pub/gnu-win32.
4391 * dont-repeat command
4393 If a user-defined command includes the command `dont-repeat', then the
4394 command will not be repeated if the user just types return. This is
4395 useful if the command is time-consuming to run, so that accidental
4396 extra keystrokes don't run the same command many times.
4398 * Send break instead of ^C
4400 The standard remote protocol now includes an option to send a break
4401 rather than a ^C to the target in order to interrupt it. By default,
4402 GDB will send ^C; to send a break, set the variable `remotebreak' to 1.
4404 * Remote protocol timeout
4406 The standard remote protocol includes a new variable `remotetimeout'
4407 that allows you to set the number of seconds before GDB gives up trying
4408 to read from the target. The default value is 2.
4410 * Automatic tracking of dynamic object loading (HPUX and Solaris only)
4412 By default GDB will automatically keep track of objects as they are
4413 loaded and unloaded by the dynamic linker. By using the command `set
4414 stop-on-solib-events 1' you can arrange for GDB to stop the inferior
4415 when shared library events occur, thus allowing you to set breakpoints
4416 in shared libraries which are explicitly loaded by the inferior.
4418 Note this feature does not work on hpux8. On hpux9 you must link
4419 /usr/lib/end.o into your program. This feature should work
4420 automatically on hpux10.
4422 * Irix 5.x hardware watchpoint support
4424 Irix 5 configurations now support the use of hardware watchpoints.
4426 * Mips protocol "SYN garbage limit"
4428 When debugging a Mips target using the `target mips' protocol, you
4429 may set the number of characters that GDB will ignore by setting
4430 the `syn-garbage-limit'. A value of -1 means that GDB will ignore
4431 every character. The default value is 1050.
4433 * Recording and replaying remote debug sessions
4435 If you set `remotelogfile' to the name of a file, gdb will write to it
4436 a recording of a remote debug session. This recording may then be
4437 replayed back to gdb using "gdbreplay". See gdbserver/README for
4438 details. This is useful when you have a problem with GDB while doing
4439 remote debugging; you can make a recording of the session and send it
4440 to someone else, who can then recreate the problem.
4442 * Speedups for remote debugging
4444 GDB includes speedups for downloading and stepping MIPS systems using
4445 the IDT monitor, fast downloads to the Hitachi SH E7000 emulator,
4446 and more efficient S-record downloading.
4448 * Memory use reductions and statistics collection
4450 GDB now uses less memory and reports statistics about memory usage.
4451 Try the `maint print statistics' command, for example.
4453 *** Changes in GDB-4.15:
4455 * Psymtabs for XCOFF
4457 The symbol reader for AIX GDB now uses partial symbol tables. This
4458 can greatly improve startup time, especially for large executables.
4460 * Remote targets use caching
4462 Remote targets now use a data cache to speed up communication with the
4463 remote side. The data cache could lead to incorrect results because
4464 it doesn't know about volatile variables, thus making it impossible to
4465 debug targets which use memory mapped I/O devices. `set remotecache
4466 off' turns the the data cache off.
4468 * Remote targets may have threads
4470 The standard remote protocol now includes support for multiple threads
4471 in the target system, using new protocol commands 'H' and 'T'. See
4472 gdb/remote.c for details.
4476 If GDB is configured with `--enable-netrom', then it will include
4477 support for the NetROM ROM emulator from XLNT Designs. The NetROM
4478 acts as though it is a bank of ROM on the target board, but you can
4479 write into it over the network. GDB's support consists only of
4480 support for fast loading into the emulated ROM; to debug, you must use
4481 another protocol, such as standard remote protocol. The usual
4482 sequence is something like
4484 target nrom <netrom-hostname>
4486 target remote <netrom-hostname>:1235
4490 GDB now includes support for the Apple Macintosh, as a host only. It
4491 may be run as either an MPW tool or as a standalone application, and
4492 it can debug through the serial port. All the usual GDB commands are
4493 available, but to the target command, you must supply "serial" as the
4494 device type instead of "/dev/ttyXX". See mpw-README in the main
4495 directory for more information on how to build. The MPW configuration
4496 scripts */mpw-config.in support only a few targets, and only the
4497 mips-idt-ecoff target has been tested.
4501 GDB configuration now uses autoconf. This is not user-visible,
4502 but does simplify configuration and building.
4506 GDB now supports hpux10.
4508 *** Changes in GDB-4.14:
4510 * New native configurations
4512 x86 FreeBSD i[345]86-*-freebsd
4513 x86 NetBSD i[345]86-*-netbsd
4514 NS32k NetBSD ns32k-*-netbsd
4515 Sparc NetBSD sparc-*-netbsd
4519 A29K VxWorks a29k-*-vxworks
4520 HP PA PRO embedded (WinBond W89K & Oki OP50N) hppa*-*-pro*
4521 CPU32 EST-300 emulator m68*-*-est*
4522 PowerPC ELF powerpc-*-elf
4525 * Alpha OSF/1 support for procfs
4527 GDB now supports procfs under OSF/1-2.x and higher, which makes it
4528 possible to attach to running processes. As the mounting of the /proc
4529 filesystem is optional on the Alpha, GDB automatically determines
4530 the availability of /proc during startup. This can lead to problems
4531 if /proc is unmounted after GDB has been started.
4533 * Arguments to user-defined commands
4535 User commands may accept up to 10 arguments separated by whitespace.
4536 Arguments are accessed within the user command via $arg0..$arg9. A
4539 print $arg0 + $arg1 + $arg2
4541 To execute the command use:
4544 Defines the command "adder" which prints the sum of its three arguments.
4545 Note the arguments are text substitutions, so they may reference variables,
4546 use complex expressions, or even perform inferior function calls.
4548 * New `if' and `while' commands
4550 This makes it possible to write more sophisticated user-defined
4551 commands. Both commands take a single argument, which is the
4552 expression to evaluate, and must be followed by the commands to
4553 execute, one per line, if the expression is nonzero, the list being
4554 terminated by the word `end'. The `if' command list may include an
4555 `else' word, which causes the following commands to be executed only
4556 if the expression is zero.
4558 * Fortran source language mode
4560 GDB now includes partial support for Fortran 77. It will recognize
4561 Fortran programs and can evaluate a subset of Fortran expressions, but
4562 variables and functions may not be handled correctly. GDB will work
4563 with G77, but does not yet know much about symbols emitted by other
4566 * Better HPUX support
4568 Most debugging facilities now work on dynamic executables for HPPAs
4569 running hpux9 or later. You can attach to running dynamically linked
4570 processes, but by default the dynamic libraries will be read-only, so
4571 for instance you won't be able to put breakpoints in them. To change
4572 that behavior do the following before running the program:
4578 This will cause the libraries to be mapped private and read-write.
4579 To revert to the normal behavior, do this:
4585 You cannot set breakpoints or examine data in the library until after
4586 the library is loaded if the function/data symbols do not have
4589 GDB can now also read debug symbols produced by the HP C compiler on
4590 HPPAs (sorry, no C++, Fortran or 68k support).
4592 * Target byte order now dynamically selectable
4594 You can choose which byte order to use with a target system, via the
4595 commands "set endian big" and "set endian little", and you can see the
4596 current setting by using "show endian". You can also give the command
4597 "set endian auto", in which case GDB will use the byte order
4598 associated with the executable. Currently, only embedded MIPS
4599 configurations support dynamic selection of target byte order.
4601 * New DOS host serial code
4603 This version uses DPMI interrupts to handle buffered I/O, so you
4604 no longer need to run asynctsr when debugging boards connected to
4607 *** Changes in GDB-4.13:
4609 * New "complete" command
4611 This lists all the possible completions for the rest of the line, if it
4612 were to be given as a command itself. This is intended for use by emacs.
4614 * Trailing space optional in prompt
4616 "set prompt" no longer adds a space for you after the prompt you set. This
4617 allows you to set a prompt which ends in a space or one that does not.
4619 * Breakpoint hit counts
4621 "info break" now displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint
4622 has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with "ignore"; you
4623 can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info
4624 to see how many times the breakpoint was hit, then run again, ignoring one
4625 less than that number, and this will get you quickly to the last hit of
4628 * Ability to stop printing at NULL character
4630 "set print null-stop" will cause GDB to stop printing the characters of
4631 an array when the first NULL is encountered. This is useful when large
4632 arrays actually contain only short strings.
4634 * Shared library breakpoints
4636 In SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, you can now set
4637 breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run.
4639 * Hardware watchpoints
4641 There is a new hardware breakpoint for the watch command for sparclite
4642 targets. See gdb/sparclite/hw_breakpoint.note.
4644 Hardware watchpoints are also now supported under GNU/Linux.
4648 Annotations have been added. These are for use with graphical interfaces,
4649 and are still experimental. Currently only gdba.el uses these.
4651 * Improved Irix 5 support
4653 GDB now works properly with Irix 5.2.
4655 * Improved HPPA support
4657 GDB now works properly with the latest GCC and GAS.
4659 * New native configurations
4661 Sequent PTX4 i[34]86-sequent-ptx4
4662 HPPA running OSF/1 hppa*-*-osf*
4663 Atari TT running SVR4 m68*-*-sysv4*
4664 RS/6000 LynxOS rs6000-*-lynxos*
4668 OS/9000 i[34]86-*-os9k
4669 MIPS R4000 mips64*{,el}-*-{ecoff,elf}
4672 * Hitachi SH7000 and E7000-PC ICE support
4674 There is now support for communicating with the Hitachi E7000-PC ICE.
4675 This is available automatically when GDB is configured for the SH.
4679 As usual, a variety of small fixes and improvements, both generic
4680 and configuration-specific. See the ChangeLog for more detail.
4682 *** Changes in GDB-4.12:
4684 * Irix 5 is now supported
4688 GDB-4.12 on the HPPA has a number of changes which make it unable
4689 to debug the output from the currently released versions of GCC and
4690 GAS (GCC 2.5.8 and GAS-2.2 or PAGAS-1.36). Until the next major release
4691 of GCC and GAS, versions of these tools designed to work with GDB-4.12
4692 can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist.
4695 *** Changes in GDB-4.11:
4697 * User visible changes:
4701 The "set remotedebug" option is now consistent between the mips remote
4702 target, remote targets using the gdb-specific protocol, UDI (AMD's
4703 debug protocol for the 29k) and the 88k bug monitor. It is now an
4704 integer specifying a debug level (normally 0 or 1, but 2 means more
4705 debugging info for the mips target).
4707 * DEC Alpha native support
4709 GDB now works on the DEC Alpha. GCC 2.4.5 does not produce usable
4710 debug info, but GDB works fairly well with the DEC compiler and should
4711 work with a future GCC release. See the README file for a few
4712 Alpha-specific notes.
4714 * Preliminary thread implementation
4716 GDB now has preliminary thread support for both SGI/Irix and LynxOS.
4718 * LynxOS native and target support for 386
4720 This release has been hosted on LynxOS 2.2, and also can be configured
4721 to remotely debug programs running under LynxOS (see gdb/gdbserver/README
4724 * Improvements in C++ mangling/demangling.
4726 This release has much better g++ debugging, specifically in name
4727 mangling/demangling, virtual function calls, print virtual table,
4728 call methods, ...etc.
4730 *** Changes in GDB-4.10:
4732 * User visible changes:
4734 Remote debugging using the GDB-specific (`target remote') protocol now
4735 supports the `load' command. This is only useful if you have some
4736 other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put it
4737 somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
4739 Filename completion now works.
4741 When run under emacs mode, the "info line" command now causes the
4742 arrow to point to the line specified. Also, "info line" prints
4743 addresses in symbolic form (as well as hex).
4745 All vxworks based targets now support a user settable option, called
4746 vxworks-timeout. This option represents the number of seconds gdb
4747 should wait for responses to rpc's. You might want to use this if
4748 your vxworks target is, perhaps, a slow software simulator or happens
4749 to be on the far side of a thin network line.
4753 This release contains support for using a DEC alpha as a GDB host for
4754 cross debugging. Native alpha debugging is not supported yet.
4757 *** Changes in GDB-4.9:
4761 This is the first GDB release which is accompanied by a matching testsuite.
4762 The testsuite requires installation of dejagnu, which should be available
4763 via ftp from most sites that carry GNU software.
4767 'Cfront' style demangling has had its name changed to 'ARM' style, to
4768 emphasize that it was written from the specifications in the C++ Annotated
4769 Reference Manual, not necessarily to be compatible with AT&T cfront. Despite
4770 disclaimers, it still generated too much confusion with users attempting to
4771 use gdb with AT&T cfront.
4775 GDB now uses a standard remote interface to a simulator library.
4776 So far, the library contains simulators for the Zilog Z8001/2, the
4777 Hitachi H8/300, H8/500 and Super-H.
4779 * New targets supported
4781 H8/300 simulator h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
4782 H8/500 simulator h8500-hitachi-hms or h8500hms
4783 SH simulator sh-hitachi-hms or sh
4784 Z8000 simulator z8k-zilog-none or z8ksim
4785 IDT MIPS board over serial line mips-idt-ecoff
4787 Cross-debugging to GO32 targets is supported. It requires a custom
4788 version of the i386-stub.c module which is integrated with the
4789 GO32 memory extender.
4791 * New remote protocols
4793 MIPS remote debugging protocol.
4795 * New source languages supported
4797 This version includes preliminary support for Chill, a Pascal like language
4798 used by telecommunications companies. Chill support is also being integrated
4799 into the GNU compiler, but we don't know when it will be publically available.
4802 *** Changes in GDB-4.8:
4804 * HP Precision Architecture supported
4806 GDB now supports HP PA-RISC machines running HPUX. A preliminary
4807 version of this support was available as a set of patches from the
4808 University of Utah. GDB does not support debugging of programs
4809 compiled with the HP compiler, because HP will not document their file
4810 format. Instead, you must use GCC (version 2.3.2 or later) and PA-GAS
4811 (as available from jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/dist/pa-gas.u4.tar.Z).
4813 Many problems in the preliminary version have been fixed.
4815 * Faster and better demangling
4817 We have improved template demangling and fixed numerous bugs in the GNU style
4818 demangler. It can now handle type modifiers such as `static' or `const'. Wide
4819 character types (wchar_t) are now supported. Demangling of each symbol is now
4820 only done once, and is cached when the symbol table for a file is read in.
4821 This results in a small increase in memory usage for C programs, a moderate
4822 increase in memory usage for C++ programs, and a fantastic speedup in
4825 `Cfront' style demangling still doesn't work with AT&T cfront. It was written
4826 from the specifications in the Annotated Reference Manual, which AT&T's
4827 compiler does not actually implement.
4829 * G++ multiple inheritance compiler problem
4831 In the 2.3.2 release of gcc/g++, how the compiler resolves multiple
4832 inheritance lattices was reworked to properly discover ambiguities. We
4833 recently found an example which causes this new algorithm to fail in a
4834 very subtle way, producing bad debug information for those classes.
4835 The file 'gcc.patch' (in this directory) can be applied to gcc to
4836 circumvent the problem. A future GCC release will contain a complete
4839 The previous G++ debug info problem (mentioned below for the gdb-4.7
4840 release) is fixed in gcc version 2.3.2.
4842 * Improved configure script
4844 The `configure' script will now attempt to guess your system type if
4845 you don't supply a host system type. The old scheme of supplying a
4846 host system triplet is preferable over using this. All the magic is
4847 done in the new `config.guess' script. Examine it for details.
4849 We have also brought our configure script much more in line with the FSF's
4850 version. It now supports the --with-xxx options. In particular,
4851 `--with-minimal-bfd' can be used to make the GDB binary image smaller.
4852 The resulting GDB will not be able to read arbitrary object file formats --
4853 only the format ``expected'' to be used on the configured target system.
4854 We hope to make this the default in a future release.
4856 * Documentation improvements
4858 There's new internal documentation on how to modify GDB, and how to
4859 produce clean changes to the code. We implore people to read it
4860 before submitting changes.
4862 The GDB manual uses new, sexy Texinfo conditionals, rather than arcane
4863 M4 macros. The new texinfo.tex is provided in this release. Pre-built
4864 `info' files are also provided. To build `info' files from scratch,
4865 you will need the latest `makeinfo' release, which will be available in
4866 a future texinfo-X.Y release.
4868 *NOTE* The new texinfo.tex can cause old versions of TeX to hang.
4869 We're not sure exactly which versions have this problem, but it has
4870 been seen in 3.0. We highly recommend upgrading to TeX version 3.141
4871 or better. If that isn't possible, there is a patch in
4872 `texinfo/tex3patch' that will modify `texinfo/texinfo.tex' to work
4873 around this problem.
4877 GDB now supports array constants that can be used in expressions typed in by
4878 the user. The syntax is `{element, element, ...}'. Ie: you can now type
4879 `print {1, 2, 3}', and it will build up an array in memory malloc'd in
4882 The new directory `gdb/sparclite' contains a program that demonstrates
4883 how the sparc-stub.c remote stub runs on a Fujitsu SPARClite processor.
4885 * New native hosts supported
4887 HP/PA-RISC under HPUX using GNU tools hppa1.1-hp-hpux
4888 386 CPUs running SCO Unix 3.2v4 i386-unknown-sco3.2v4
4890 * New targets supported
4892 AMD 29k family via UDI a29k-amd-udi or udi29k
4894 * New file formats supported
4896 BFD now supports reading HP/PA-RISC executables (SOM file format?),
4897 HPUX core files, and SCO 3.2v2 core files.
4901 Attaching to processes now works again; thanks for the many bug reports.
4903 We have also stomped on a bunch of core dumps caused by
4904 printf_filtered("%s") problems.
4906 We eliminated a copyright problem on the rpc and ptrace header files
4907 for VxWorks, which was discovered at the last minute during the 4.7
4908 release. You should now be able to build a VxWorks GDB.
4910 You can now interrupt gdb while an attached process is running. This
4911 will cause the attached process to stop, and give control back to GDB.
4913 We fixed problems caused by using too many file descriptors
4914 for reading symbols from object files and libraries. This was
4915 especially a problem for programs that used many (~100) shared
4918 The `step' command now only enters a subroutine if there is line number
4919 information for the subroutine. Otherwise it acts like the `next'
4920 command. Previously, `step' would enter subroutines if there was
4921 any debugging information about the routine. This avoids problems
4922 when using `cc -g1' on MIPS machines.
4924 * Internal improvements
4926 GDB's internal interfaces have been improved to make it easier to support
4927 debugging of multiple languages in the future.
4929 GDB now uses a common structure for symbol information internally.
4930 Minimal symbols (derived from linkage symbols in object files), partial
4931 symbols (from a quick scan of debug information), and full symbols
4932 contain a common subset of information, making it easier to write
4933 shared code that handles any of them.
4935 * New command line options
4937 We now accept --silent as an alias for --quiet.
4941 The memory-mapped-malloc library is now licensed under the GNU Library
4942 General Public License.
4944 *** Changes in GDB-4.7:
4946 * Host/native/target split
4948 GDB has had some major internal surgery to untangle the support for
4949 hosts and remote targets. Now, when you configure GDB for a remote
4950 target, it will no longer load in all of the support for debugging
4951 local programs on the host. When fully completed and tested, this will
4952 ensure that arbitrary host/target combinations are possible.
4954 The primary conceptual shift is to separate the non-portable code in
4955 GDB into three categories. Host specific code is required any time GDB
4956 is compiled on that host, regardless of the target. Target specific
4957 code relates to the peculiarities of the target, but can be compiled on
4958 any host. Native specific code is everything else: it can only be
4959 built when the host and target are the same system. Child process
4960 handling and core file support are two common `native' examples.
4962 GDB's use of /proc for controlling Unix child processes is now cleaner.
4963 It has been split out into a single module under the `target_ops' vector,
4964 plus two native-dependent functions for each system that uses /proc.
4966 * New hosts supported
4968 HP/Apollo 68k (under the BSD domain) m68k-apollo-bsd or apollo68bsd
4969 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4970 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or i386sco
4972 * New targets supported
4974 Fujitsu SPARClite sparclite-fujitsu-none or sparclite
4975 68030 and CPU32 m68030-*-*, m68332-*-*
4977 * New native hosts supported
4979 386 CPUs running various BSD ports i386-unknown-bsd or 386bsd
4980 (386bsd is not well tested yet)
4981 386 CPUs running SCO Unix i386-unknown-scosysv322 or sco
4983 * New file formats supported
4985 BFD now supports COFF files for the Zilog Z8000 microprocessor. It
4986 supports reading of `a.out.adobe' object files, which are an a.out
4987 format extended with minimal information about multiple sections.
4991 `show copying' is the same as the old `info copying'.
4992 `show warranty' is the same as `info warrantee'.
4993 These were renamed for consistency. The old commands continue to work.
4995 `info handle' is a new alias for `info signals'.
4997 You can now define pre-command hooks, which attach arbitrary command
4998 scripts to any command. The commands in the hook will be executed
4999 prior to the user's command. You can also create a hook which will be
5000 executed whenever the program stops. See gdb.texinfo.
5004 We now deal with Cfront style name mangling, and can even extract type
5005 info from mangled symbols. GDB can automatically figure out which
5006 symbol mangling style your C++ compiler uses.
5008 Calling of methods and virtual functions has been improved as well.
5012 The crash that occured when debugging Sun Ansi-C compiled binaries is
5013 fixed. This was due to mishandling of the extra N_SO stabs output
5016 We also finally got Ultrix 4.2 running in house, and fixed core file
5017 support, with help from a dozen people on the net.
5019 John M. Farrell discovered that the reason that single-stepping was so
5020 slow on all of the Mips based platforms (primarily SGI and DEC) was
5021 that we were trying to demangle and lookup a symbol used for internal
5022 purposes on every instruction that was being stepped through. Changing
5023 the name of that symbol so that it couldn't be mistaken for a C++
5024 mangled symbol sped things up a great deal.
5026 Rich Pixley sped up symbol lookups in general by getting much smarter
5027 about when C++ symbol mangling is necessary. This should make symbol
5028 completion (TAB on the command line) much faster. It's not as fast as
5029 we'd like, but it's significantly faster than gdb-4.6.
5033 A new user controllable variable 'call_scratch_address' can
5034 specify the location of a scratch area to be used when GDB
5035 calls a function in the target. This is necessary because the
5036 usual method of putting the scratch area on the stack does not work
5037 in systems that have separate instruction and data spaces.
5039 We integrated changes to support the 29k UDI (Universal Debugger
5040 Interface), but discovered at the last minute that we didn't have all
5041 of the appropriate copyright paperwork. We are working with AMD to
5042 resolve this, and hope to have it available soon.
5046 We have sped up the remote serial line protocol, especially for targets
5047 with lots of registers. It now supports a new `expedited status' ('T')
5048 message which can be used in place of the existing 'S' status message.
5049 This allows the remote stub to send only the registers that GDB
5050 needs to make a quick decision about single-stepping or conditional
5051 breakpoints, eliminating the need to fetch the entire register set for
5052 each instruction being stepped through.
5054 The GDB remote serial protocol now implements a write-through cache for
5055 registers, only re-reading the registers if the target has run.
5057 There is also a new remote serial stub for SPARC processors. You can
5058 find it in gdb-4.7/gdb/sparc-stub.c. This was written to support the
5059 Fujitsu SPARClite processor, but will run on any stand-alone SPARC
5060 processor with a serial port.
5064 Configure.in files have become much easier to read and modify. A new
5065 `table driven' format makes it more obvious what configurations are
5066 supported, and what files each one uses.
5070 There is a new opcodes library which will eventually contain all of the
5071 disassembly routines and opcode tables. At present, it only contains
5072 Sparc and Z8000 routines. This will allow the assembler, debugger, and
5073 disassembler (binutils/objdump) to share these routines.
5075 The libiberty library is now copylefted under the GNU Library General
5076 Public License. This allows more liberal use, and was done so libg++
5077 can use it. This makes no difference to GDB, since the Library License
5078 grants all the rights from the General Public License.
5082 The file gdb-4.7/gdb/doc/stabs.texinfo is a (relatively) complete
5083 reference to the stabs symbol info used by the debugger. It is (as far
5084 as we know) the only published document on this fascinating topic. We
5085 encourage you to read it, compare it to the stabs information on your
5086 system, and send improvements on the document in general (to
5087 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu).
5089 And, of course, many bugs have been fixed.
5092 *** Changes in GDB-4.6:
5094 * Better support for C++ function names
5096 GDB now accepts as input the "demangled form" of C++ overloaded function
5097 names and member function names, and can do command completion on such names
5098 (using TAB, TAB-TAB, and ESC-?). The names have to be quoted with a pair of
5099 single quotes. Examples are 'func (int, long)' and 'obj::operator==(obj&)'.
5100 Make use of command completion, it is your friend.
5102 GDB also now accepts a variety of C++ mangled symbol formats. They are
5103 the GNU g++ style, the Cfront (ARM) style, and the Lucid (lcc) style.
5104 You can tell GDB which format to use by doing a 'set demangle-style {gnu,
5105 lucid, cfront, auto}'. 'gnu' is the default. Do a 'set demangle-style foo'
5106 for the list of formats.
5108 * G++ symbol mangling problem
5110 Recent versions of gcc have a bug in how they emit debugging information for
5111 C++ methods (when using dbx-style stabs). The file 'gcc.patch' (in this
5112 directory) can be applied to gcc to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you
5113 can't fix gcc, you can #define GCC_MANGLE_BUG when compling gdb/symtab.c. The
5114 usual symptom is difficulty with setting breakpoints on methods. GDB complains
5115 about the method being non-existent. (We believe that version 2.2.2 of GCC has
5118 * New 'maintenance' command
5120 All of the commands related to hacking GDB internals have been moved out of
5121 the main command set, and now live behind the 'maintenance' command. This
5122 can also be abbreviated as 'mt'. The following changes were made:
5124 dump-me -> maintenance dump-me
5125 info all-breakpoints -> maintenance info breakpoints
5126 printmsyms -> maintenance print msyms
5127 printobjfiles -> maintenance print objfiles
5128 printpsyms -> maintenance print psymbols
5129 printsyms -> maintenance print symbols
5131 The following commands are new:
5133 maintenance demangle Call internal GDB demangler routine to
5134 demangle a C++ link name and prints the result.
5135 maintenance print type Print a type chain for a given symbol
5137 * Change to .gdbinit file processing
5139 We now read the $HOME/.gdbinit file before processing the argv arguments
5140 (e.g. reading symbol files or core files). This allows global parameters to
5141 be set, which will apply during the symbol reading. The ./.gdbinit is still
5142 read after argv processing.
5144 * New hosts supported
5146 Solaris-2.0 !!! sparc-sun-solaris2 or sun4sol2
5148 GNU/Linux support i386-unknown-linux or linux
5150 We are also including code to support the HP/PA running BSD and HPUX. This
5151 is almost guaranteed not to work, as we didn't have time to test or build it
5152 for this release. We are including it so that the more adventurous (or
5153 masochistic) of you can play with it. We also had major problems with the
5154 fact that the compiler that we got from HP doesn't support the -g option.
5157 * New targets supported
5159 Hitachi H8/300 h8300-hitachi-hms or h8300hms
5161 * More smarts about finding #include files
5163 GDB now remembers the compilation directory for all include files, and for
5164 all files from which C is generated (like yacc and lex sources). This
5165 greatly improves GDB's ability to find yacc/lex sources, and include files,
5166 especially if you are debugging your program from a directory different from
5167 the one that contains your sources.
5169 We also fixed a bug which caused difficulty with listing and setting
5170 breakpoints in include files which contain C code. (In the past, you had to
5171 try twice in order to list an include file that you hadn't looked at before.)
5173 * Interesting infernals change
5175 GDB now deals with arbitrary numbers of sections, where the symbols for each
5176 section must be relocated relative to that section's landing place in the
5177 target's address space. This work was needed to support ELF with embedded
5178 stabs used by Solaris-2.0.
5180 * Bug fixes (of course!)
5182 There have been loads of fixes for the following things:
5183 mips, rs6000, 29k/udi, m68k, g++, type handling, elf/dwarf, m88k,
5184 i960, stabs, DOS(GO32), procfs, etc...
5186 See the ChangeLog for details.
5188 *** Changes in GDB-4.5:
5190 * New machines supported (host and target)
5192 IBM RS6000 running AIX rs6000-ibm-aix or rs6000
5194 SGI Irix-4.x mips-sgi-irix4 or iris4
5196 * New malloc package
5198 GDB now uses a new memory manager called mmalloc, based on gmalloc.
5199 Mmalloc is capable of handling mutiple heaps of memory. It is also
5200 capable of saving a heap to a file, and then mapping it back in later.
5201 This can be used to greatly speedup the startup of GDB by using a
5202 pre-parsed symbol table which lives in a mmalloc managed heap. For
5203 more details, please read mmalloc/mmalloc.texi.
5207 The 'info proc' command (SVR4 only) has been enhanced quite a bit. See
5208 'help info proc' for details.
5210 * MIPS ecoff symbol table format
5212 The code that reads MIPS symbol table format is now supported on all hosts.
5213 Thanks to MIPS for releasing the sym.h and symconst.h files to make this
5216 * File name changes for MS-DOS
5218 Many files in the config directories have been renamed to make it easier to
5219 support GDB on MS-DOSe systems (which have very restrictive file name
5220 conventions :-( ). MS-DOSe host support (under DJ Delorie's GO32
5221 environment) is close to working but has some remaining problems. Note
5222 that debugging of DOS programs is not supported, due to limitations
5223 in the ``operating system'', but it can be used to host cross-debugging.
5225 * Cross byte order fixes
5227 Many fixes have been made to support cross debugging of Sparc and MIPS
5228 targets from hosts whose byte order differs.
5230 * New -mapped and -readnow options
5232 If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the 'mmap'
5233 system call, you can use the -mapped option on the `file' or
5234 `symbol-file' commands to cause GDB to write the symbols from your
5235 program into a reusable file. If the program you are debugging is
5236 called `/path/fred', the mapped symbol file will be `./fred.syms'.
5237 Future GDB debugging sessions will notice the presence of this file,
5238 and will quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
5239 the symbol table from the executable program. Using the '-mapped'
5240 option in a GDB `file' or `symbol-file' command has the same effect as
5241 starting GDB with the '-mapped' command-line option.
5243 You can cause GDB to read the entire symbol table immediately by using
5244 the '-readnow' option with any of the commands that load symbol table
5245 information (or on the GDB command line). This makes the command
5246 slower, but makes future operations faster.
5248 The -mapped and -readnow options are typically combined in order to
5249 build a `fred.syms' file that contains complete symbol information.
5250 A simple GDB invocation to do nothing but build a `.syms' file for future
5253 gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
5255 The `.syms' file is specific to the host machine on which GDB is run.
5256 It holds an exact image of GDB's internal symbol table. It cannot be
5257 shared across multiple host platforms.
5259 * longjmp() handling
5261 GDB is now capable of stepping and nexting over longjmp(), _longjmp(), and
5262 siglongjmp() without losing control. This feature has not yet been ported to
5263 all systems. It currently works on many 386 platforms, all MIPS-based
5264 platforms (SGI, DECstation, etc), and Sun3/4.
5268 Preliminary work has been put in to support the new Solaris OS from Sun. At
5269 this time, it can control and debug processes, but it is not capable of
5274 As always, many many bug fixes. The major areas were with g++, and mipsread.
5275 People using the MIPS-based platforms should experience fewer mysterious
5276 crashes and trashed symbol tables.
5278 *** Changes in GDB-4.4:
5280 * New machines supported (host and target)
5282 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5284 BSD Reno on Vax vax-dec-bsd
5285 Ultrix on Vax vax-dec-ultrix
5287 * New machines supported (target)
5289 AMD 29000 embedded, using EBMON a29k-none-none
5293 GDB continues to improve its handling of C++. `References' work better.
5294 The demangler has also been improved, and now deals with symbols mangled as
5295 per the Annotated C++ Reference Guide.
5297 GDB also now handles `stabs' symbol information embedded in MIPS
5298 `ecoff' symbol tables. Since the ecoff format was not easily
5299 extensible to handle new languages such as C++, this appeared to be a
5300 good way to put C++ debugging info into MIPS binaries. This option
5301 will be supported in the GNU C compiler, version 2, when it is
5304 * New features for SVR4
5306 GDB now handles SVR4 shared libraries, in the same fashion as SunOS
5307 shared libraries. Debugging dynamically linked programs should present
5308 only minor differences from debugging statically linked programs.
5310 The `info proc' command will print out information about any process
5311 on an SVR4 system (including the one you are debugging). At the moment,
5312 it prints the address mappings of the process.
5314 If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please send mail to
5315 bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were reqired (if any).
5317 * Better dynamic linking support in SunOS
5319 Reading symbols from shared libraries which contain debugging symbols
5320 now works properly. However, there remain issues such as automatic
5321 skipping of `transfer vector' code during function calls, which
5322 make it harder to debug code in a shared library, than to debug the
5323 same code linked statically.
5327 GDB is now using the latest `getopt' routines from the FSF. This
5328 version accepts the -- prefix for options with long names. GDB will
5329 continue to accept the old forms (-option and +option) as well.
5330 Various single letter abbreviations for options have been explicity
5331 added to the option table so that they won't get overshadowed in the
5332 future by other options that begin with the same letter.
5336 The `cleanup_undefined_types' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5337 Many assorted bugs have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5338 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5341 *** Changes in GDB-4.3:
5343 * New machines supported (host and target)
5345 Amiga 3000 running Amix m68k-cbm-svr4 or amix
5346 NCR 3000 386 running SVR4 i386-ncr-svr4 or ncr3000
5347 Motorola Delta 88000 running Sys V m88k-motorola-sysv or delta88
5349 * Almost SCO Unix support
5351 We had hoped to support:
5352 SCO Unix on i386 IBM PC clones i386-sco-sysv or i386sco
5353 (except for core file support), but we discovered very late in the release
5354 that it has problems with process groups that render gdb unusable. Sorry
5355 about that. I encourage people to fix it and post the fixes.
5357 * Preliminary ELF and DWARF support
5359 GDB can read ELF object files on System V Release 4, and can handle
5360 debugging records for C, in DWARF format, in ELF files. This support
5361 is preliminary. If you bring up GDB on another SVR4 system, please
5362 send mail to bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu to let us know what changes were
5367 GDB now uses the latest `readline' library. One user-visible change
5368 is that two tabs will list possible command completions, which previously
5369 required typing M-? (meta-question mark, or ESC ?).
5373 The `stepi' bug that many of you noticed has been squashed.
5374 Many bugs in C++ have been handled. Many more remain to be handled.
5375 See the various ChangeLog files (primarily in gdb and bfd) for details.
5377 * State of the MIPS world (in case you wondered):
5379 GDB can understand the symbol tables emitted by the compilers
5380 supplied by most vendors of MIPS-based machines, including DEC. These
5381 symbol tables are in a format that essentially nobody else uses.
5383 Some versions of gcc come with an assembler post-processor called
5384 mips-tfile. This program is required if you want to do source-level
5385 debugging of gcc-compiled programs. I believe FSF does not ship
5386 mips-tfile with gcc version 1, but it will eventually come with gcc
5389 Debugging of g++ output remains a problem. g++ version 1.xx does not
5390 really support it at all. (If you're lucky, you should be able to get
5391 line numbers and stack traces to work, but no parameters or local
5392 variables.) With some work it should be possible to improve the
5395 When gcc version 2 is released, you will have somewhat better luck.
5396 However, even then you will get confusing results for inheritance and
5399 We will eventually provide full debugging of g++ output on
5400 DECstations. This will probably involve some kind of stabs-in-ecoff
5401 encapulation, but the details have not been worked out yet.
5404 *** Changes in GDB-4.2:
5406 * Improved configuration
5408 Only one copy of `configure' exists now, and it is not self-modifying.
5409 Porting BFD is simpler.
5413 The `step' and `next' commands now only stop at the first instruction
5414 of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that used to occur
5415 in switch statements, for-loops, etc. `Step' continues to stop if a
5416 function that has debugging information is called within the line.
5420 Lots of small bugs fixed. More remain.
5422 * New host supported (not target)
5424 Intel 386 PC clone running Mach i386-none-mach
5427 *** Changes in GDB-4.1:
5429 * Multiple source language support
5431 GDB now has internal scaffolding to handle several source languages.
5432 It determines the type of each source file from its filename extension,
5433 and will switch expression parsing and number formatting to match the
5434 language of the function in the currently selected stack frame.
5435 You can also specifically set the language to be used, with
5436 `set language c' or `set language modula-2'.
5440 GDB now has preliminary support for the GNU Modula-2 compiler,
5441 currently under development at the State University of New York at
5442 Buffalo. Development of both GDB and the GNU Modula-2 compiler will
5443 continue through the fall of 1991 and into 1992.
5445 Other Modula-2 compilers are currently not supported, and attempting to
5446 debug programs compiled with them will likely result in an error as the
5447 symbol table is read. Feel free to work on it, though!
5449 There are hooks in GDB for strict type checking and range checking,
5450 in the `Modula-2 philosophy', but they do not currently work.
5454 GDB can now write to executable and core files (e.g. patch
5455 a variable's value). You must turn this switch on, specify
5456 the file ("exec foo" or "core foo"), *then* modify it, e.g.
5457 by assigning a new value to a variable. Modifications take
5460 * Automatic SunOS shared library reading
5462 When you run your program, GDB automatically determines where its
5463 shared libraries (if any) have been loaded, and reads their symbols.
5464 The `share' command is no longer needed. This also works when
5465 examining core files.
5469 You can specify the number of lines that the `list' command shows.
5472 * New machines supported (host and target)
5474 SGI Iris (MIPS) running Irix V3: mips-sgi-irix or iris
5475 Sony NEWS (68K) running NEWSOS 3.x: m68k-sony-sysv or news
5476 Ultracomputer (29K) running Sym1: a29k-nyu-sym1 or ultra3
5478 * New hosts supported (not targets)
5480 IBM RT/PC: romp-ibm-aix or rtpc
5482 * New targets supported (not hosts)
5484 AMD 29000 embedded with COFF a29k-none-coff
5485 AMD 29000 embedded with a.out a29k-none-aout
5486 Ultracomputer remote kernel debug a29k-nyu-kern
5488 * New remote interfaces
5494 *** Changes in GDB-4.0:
5498 Wide output is wrapped at good places to make the output more readable.
5500 Gdb now supports cross-debugging from a host machine of one type to a
5501 target machine of another type. Communication with the target system
5502 is over serial lines. The ``target'' command handles connecting to the
5503 remote system; the ``load'' command will download a program into the
5504 remote system. Serial stubs for the m68k and i386 are provided. Gdb
5505 also supports debugging of realtime processes running under VxWorks,
5506 using SunRPC Remote Procedure Calls over TCP/IP to talk to a debugger
5507 stub on the target system.
5509 New CPUs supported include the AMD 29000 and Intel 960.
5511 GDB now reads object files and symbol tables via a ``binary file''
5512 library, which allows a single copy of GDB to debug programs of multiple
5513 object file types such as a.out and coff.
5515 There is now a GDB reference card in "doc/refcard.tex". (Make targets
5516 refcard.dvi and refcard.ps are available to format it).
5519 * Control-Variable user interface simplified
5521 All variables that control the operation of the debugger can be set
5522 by the ``set'' command, and displayed by the ``show'' command.
5524 For example, ``set prompt new-gdb=>'' will change your prompt to new-gdb=>.
5525 ``Show prompt'' produces the response:
5526 Gdb's prompt is new-gdb=>.
5528 What follows are the NEW set commands. The command ``help set'' will
5529 print a complete list of old and new set commands. ``help set FOO''
5530 will give a longer description of the variable FOO. ``show'' will show
5531 all of the variable descriptions and their current settings.
5533 confirm on/off: Enables warning questions for operations that are
5534 hard to recover from, e.g. rerunning the program while
5535 it is already running. Default is ON.
5537 editing on/off: Enables EMACS style command line editing
5538 of input. Previous lines can be recalled with
5539 control-P, the current line can be edited with control-B,
5540 you can search for commands with control-R, etc.
5543 history filename NAME: NAME is where the gdb command history
5544 will be stored. The default is .gdb_history,
5545 or the value of the environment variable
5548 history size N: The size, in commands, of the command history. The
5549 default is 256, or the value of the environment variable
5552 history save on/off: If this value is set to ON, the history file will
5553 be saved after exiting gdb. If set to OFF, the
5554 file will not be saved. The default is OFF.
5556 history expansion on/off: If this value is set to ON, then csh-like
5557 history expansion will be performed on
5558 command line input. The default is OFF.
5560 radix N: Sets the default radix for input and output. It can be set
5561 to 8, 10, or 16. Note that the argument to "radix" is interpreted
5562 in the current radix, so "set radix 10" is always a no-op.
5564 height N: This integer value is the number of lines on a page. Default
5565 is 24, the current `stty rows'' setting, or the ``li#''
5566 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5569 width N: This integer value is the number of characters on a line.
5570 Default is 80, the current `stty cols'' setting, or the ``co#''
5571 setting from the termcap entry matching the environment
5574 Note: ``set screensize'' is obsolete. Use ``set height'' and
5575 ``set width'' instead.
5577 print address on/off: Print memory addresses in various command displays,
5578 such as stack traces and structure values. Gdb looks
5579 more ``symbolic'' if you turn this off; it looks more
5580 ``machine level'' with it on. Default is ON.
5582 print array on/off: Prettyprint arrays. New convenient format! Default
5585 print demangle on/off: Print C++ symbols in "source" form if on,
5588 print asm-demangle on/off: Same, for assembler level printouts
5591 print vtbl on/off: Prettyprint C++ virtual function tables. Default is OFF.
5594 * Support for Epoch Environment.
5596 The epoch environment is a version of Emacs v18 with windowing. One
5597 new command, ``inspect'', is identical to ``print'', except that if you
5598 are running in the epoch environment, the value is printed in its own
5602 * Support for Shared Libraries
5604 GDB can now debug programs and core files that use SunOS shared libraries.
5605 Symbols from a shared library cannot be referenced
5606 before the shared library has been linked with the program (this
5607 happens after you type ``run'' and before the function main() is entered).
5608 At any time after this linking (including when examining core files
5609 from dynamically linked programs), gdb reads the symbols from each
5610 shared library when you type the ``sharedlibrary'' command.
5611 It can be abbreviated ``share''.
5613 sharedlibrary REGEXP: Load shared object library symbols for files
5614 matching a unix regular expression. No argument
5615 indicates to load symbols for all shared libraries.
5617 info sharedlibrary: Status of loaded shared libraries.
5622 A watchpoint stops execution of a program whenever the value of an
5623 expression changes. Checking for this slows down execution
5624 tremendously whenever you are in the scope of the expression, but is
5625 quite useful for catching tough ``bit-spreader'' or pointer misuse
5626 problems. Some machines such as the 386 have hardware for doing this
5627 more quickly, and future versions of gdb will use this hardware.
5629 watch EXP: Set a watchpoint (breakpoint) for an expression.
5631 info watchpoints: Information about your watchpoints.
5633 delete N: Deletes watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5634 disable N: Temporarily turns off watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5635 enable N: Re-enables watchpoint number N (same as breakpoints).
5638 * C++ multiple inheritance
5640 When used with a GCC version 2 compiler, GDB supports multiple inheritance
5643 * C++ exception handling
5645 Gdb now supports limited C++ exception handling. Besides the existing
5646 ability to breakpoint on an exception handler, gdb can breakpoint on
5647 the raising of an exception (before the stack is peeled back to the
5650 catch FOO: If there is a FOO exception handler in the dynamic scope,
5651 set a breakpoint to catch exceptions which may be raised there.
5652 Multiple exceptions (``catch foo bar baz'') may be caught.
5654 info catch: Lists all exceptions which may be caught in the
5655 current stack frame.
5658 * Minor command changes
5660 The command ``call func (arg, arg, ...)'' now acts like the print
5661 command, except it does not print or save a value if the function's result
5662 is void. This is similar to dbx usage.
5664 The ``up'' and ``down'' commands now always print the frame they end up
5665 at; ``up-silently'' and `down-silently'' can be used in scripts to change
5666 frames without printing.
5668 * New directory command
5670 'dir' now adds directories to the FRONT of the source search path.
5671 The path starts off empty. Source files that contain debug information
5672 about the directory in which they were compiled can be found even
5673 with an empty path; Sun CC and GCC include this information. If GDB can't
5674 find your source file in the current directory, type "dir .".
5676 * Configuring GDB for compilation
5678 For normal use, type ``./configure host''. See README or gdb.texinfo
5681 GDB now handles cross debugging. If you are remotely debugging between
5682 two different machines, type ``./configure host -target=targ''.
5683 Host is the machine where GDB will run; targ is the machine
5684 where the program that you are debugging will run.
5686 * GDB now supports access to Intel(R) MPX registers on GNU/Linux.