gdb-12.1

[Bruce Dubbs]

New major version.

[Bruce Dubbs]

What has changed in GDB?

Changes in GDB 12

• DBX mode is deprecated, and will be removed in GDB 13

• GDB 12 is the last release of GDB that will support building against Python 2. From GDB 13, it will only be possible to build GDB itself with Python 3 support.

• Improved C++ template support

GDB now treats functions/types involving C++ templates like it does function overloads. Users may omit parameter lists to set breakpoints on families of template functions, including types/functions composed of multiple template types:

(gdb) break template_func(template_1, int)

The above will set breakpoints at every function `template_func' where the first function parameter is any template type named `template_1' and the second function parameter is `int'.

TAB completion also gains similar improvements.

• The FreeBSD native target now supports async mode.

• Configure changes

--enable-threading

Enable or disable multithreaded symbol loading. This is enabled by default, but passing --disable-threading or --enable-threading=no to configure will disable it.

Disabling this can cause a performance penalty when there are a lot of symbols to load, but is useful for debugging purposes.

• New commands

maint set backtrace-on-fatal-signal on|off maint show backtrace-on-fatal-signal

This setting is 'on' by default. When 'on' GDB will print a limited backtrace to stderr in the situation where GDB terminates with a fatal signal. This only supported on some platforms where the backtrace and backtrace_symbols_fd functions are available.

set source open on|off show source open

This setting, which is on by default, controls whether GDB will try to open source code files. Switching this off will stop GDB trying to open and read source code files, which can be useful if the files are located over a slow network connection.

set varsize-limit show varsize-limit

These are now deprecated aliases for "set max-value-size" and "show max-value-size".

task apply [all | TASK-IDS...] [FLAG]... COMMAND

Like "thread apply", but applies COMMAND to Ada tasks.

watch [...] task ID

Watchpoints can now be restricted to a specific Ada task.

maint set internal-error backtrace on|off maint show internal-error backtrace maint set internal-warning backtrace on|off maint show internal-warning backtrace

GDB can now print a backtrace of itself when it encounters either an internal-error, or an internal-warning. This is on by default for internal-error and off by default for internal-warning.

set logging on|off

Deprecated and replaced by "set logging enabled on|off".

set logging enabled on|off show logging enabled

These commands set or show whether logging is enabled or disabled.

exit

You can now exit GDB by using the new command "exit", in addition to the existing "quit" command.

set debug threads on|off show debug threads

Print additional debug messages about thread creation and deletion.

set debug linux-nat on|off show debug linux-nat

These new commands replaced the old 'set debug lin-lwp' and 'show debug lin-lwp' respectively. Turning this setting on prints debug messages relating to GDB's handling of native Linux inferiors.

maint flush source-cache

Flush the contents of the source code cache.

maint set gnu-source-highlight enabled on|off maint show gnu-source-highlight enabled

Whether GDB should use the GNU Source Highlight library for adding styling to source code. When off, the library will not be used, even when available. When GNU Source Highlight isn't used, or can't add styling to a particular source file, then the Python Pygments library will be used instead.

set suppress-cli-notifications (on|off) show suppress-cli-notifications

This controls whether printing the notifications is suppressed for CLI. CLI notifications occur when you change the selected context (i.e., the current inferior, thread and/or the frame), or when the program being debugged stops (e.g., because of hitting a breakpoint, completing source-stepping, an interrupt, etc.).

set style disassembler enabled on|off show style disassembler enabled

If GDB is compiled with Python support, and the Python Pygments package is available, then, when this setting is on, disassembler output will have styling applied.

set ada source-charset show ada source-charset

Set the character set encoding that is assumed for Ada symbols. Valid values for this follow the values that can be passed to the GNAT compiler via the '-gnati' option. The default is ISO-8859-1.

• Changed commands

print

Printing of floating-point values with base-modifying formats like /x has been changed to display the underlying bytes of the value in the desired base. This was GDB's documented behavior, but was never implemented correctly.

maint packet

This command can now print a reply, if the reply includes non-printable characters. Any non-printable characters are printed as escaped hex, e.g. \x?? where '??' is replaces with the value of the non-printable character.

clone-inferior

The clone-inferior command now ensures that the TTY, CMD and ARGS settings are copied from the original inferior to the new one. All modifications to the environment variables done using the 'set environment' or 'unset environment' commands are also copied to the new inferior.

set debug lin-lwp on|off show debug lin-lwp

These commands have been removed from GDB. The new command 'set debug linux-nat' and 'show debug linux-nat' should be used instead.

info win

This command now includes information about the width of the tui windows in its output.

• GDB's Ada parser now supports an extension for specifying the exact byte contents of a floating-point literal. This can be useful for setting floating-point registers to a precise value without loss of precision. The syntax is an extension of the based literal syntax. Use, e.g., "16lf#0123abcd#" -- the number of "l"s controls the width of the floating-point type, and the "f" is the marker for floating point.

• MI changes

• The '-add-inferior' with no option flags now inherits the connection of the current inferior, this restores the behaviour of GDB as it was prior to GDB 10.

• The '-add-inferior' command now accepts a '--no-connection' option, which causes the new inferior to start without a connection.

• New targets

GNU/Linux/LoongArch loongarch*-*-linux*

• Removed targets

S+core score-*-*

• Python API

• New function gdb.add_history(), which takes a gdb.Value object and adds the value it represents to GDB's history list. An integer, the index of the new item in the history list, is returned.

• New function gdb.history_count(), which returns the number of values in GDB's value history.

• New gdb.events.gdb_exiting event. This event is called with a gdb.GdbExitingEvent object which has the read-only attribute 'exit_code', which contains the value of the GDB exit code. This event is triggered once GDB decides it is going to exit, but before GDB starts to clean up its internal state.

• New function gdb.architecture_names(), which returns a list containing all of the possible Architecture.name() values. Each entry is a string.

• New function gdb.Architecture.integer_type(), which returns an integer type given a size and a signed-ness.

• New gdb.TargetConnection object type that represents a connection (as displayed by the 'info connections' command). A sub-class, gdb.RemoteTargetConnection, is used to represent 'remote' and 'extended-remote' connections.

• The gdb.Inferior type now has a 'connection' property which is an instance of gdb.TargetConnection, the connection used by this inferior. This can be None if the inferior has no connection.

• New 'gdb.events.connection_removed' event registry, which emits a 'gdb.ConnectionEvent' when a connection is removed from GDB. This event has a 'connection' property, a gdb.TargetConnection object for the connection being removed.

• New gdb.connections() function that returns a list of all currently active connections.

• New gdb.RemoteTargetConnection.send_packet(PACKET) method. This is equivalent to the existing 'maint packet' CLI command; it allows a user specified packet to be sent to the remote target.

• New function gdb.host_charset(), returns a string, which is the name of the current host charset.

• New gdb.set_parameter(NAME, VALUE). This sets the gdb parameter NAME to VALUE.

• New gdb.with_parameter(NAME, VALUE). This returns a context manager that temporarily sets the gdb parameter NAME to VALUE, then resets it when the context is exited.

• The gdb.Value.format_string method now takes a 'styling' argument, which is a boolean. When true, the returned string can include escape sequences to apply styling. The styling will only be present if styling is otherwise turned on in GDB (see 'help set styling'). When false, which is the default if the argument is not given, then no styling is applied to the returned string.

• New read-only attribute gdb.InferiorThread.details, which is either a string, containing additional, target specific thread state information, or None, if there is no such additional information.

• New read-only attribute gdb.Type.is_scalar, which is True for scalar types, and False for all other types.

• New read-only attribute gdb.Type.is_signed. This attribute should only be read when Type.is_scalar is True, and will be True for signed types, and False for all other types. Attempting to read this attribute for non-scalar types will raise a ValueError.

• It is now possible to add GDB/MI commands implemented in Python.

• New features in the GDB remote stub, GDBserver

• GDBserver is now supported on OpenRISC GNU/Linux.

• New native configurations

GNU/Linux/OpenRISC or1k*-*-linux*

[Bruce Dubbs]

Fixed at commits

460711cee7 Update to freetype-2.12.1.
8259f64259 Update to icewm-2.9.7.
e2fe6d4461 Update to gdb-12.1.