GDB 7.1 released [LWN.net]

From:		Joel Brobecker <brobecker-AT-adacore.com>
To:		gdb-announce-AT-sourceware.org
Subject:		GDB 7.1 released!
Date:		Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:20:49 -0700
Archive-link:		Article, Thread

            GDB 7.1 released!

Release 7.1 of GDB, the GNU Debugger, is now available via anonymous
FTP.  GDB is a source-level debugger for Ada, C, C++, Objective-C,
Pascal and many other languages.  GDB can target (i.e., debug programs
running on) more than a dozen different processor architectures, and GDB
itself can run on most popular GNU/Linux, Unix and Microsoft Windows
variants.

You can download GDB from the GNU FTP server in the directory:

        ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gdb

The vital stats:

  Size  md5sum                            Name
  17MB  21dce610476c054687b52770d2ddc657  gdb-7.1.tar.bz2
  23MB  01a6ce13bab5307cfac5c405e4afd1cf  gdb-7.1.tar.gz

There is a web page for GDB at: 

        http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/

That page includes information about GDB mailing lists (an announcement
mailing list, developers discussion lists, etc.), details on how to
access GDB's CVS repository, locations for development snapshots,
preformatted documentation, and links to related information around
the net.  We will put errata notes and host-specific tips for this release
on-line as any problems come up.  All mailing lists archives are also
browsable via the web.

GDB 7.1 brings new targets, features and improvements, including:

Support for new targets (including a simulator):

  * Xilinx MicroBlaze
  * Renesas RX

The major new features are:

  * Multi-program debugging, allowing the debugger to control more than
    one program within the same GDB session.
  * Position Independent Executable (PIE) debugging.

It also features many enhancements and bug fixes, including:

  * Python support has been extended.
  * C++ support improvements (namespace, cast operators, bug fixes)
  * Tracepoint support improvements.
  * Process Record improvements (save/restore execution log, hardware
    watchpoint support).
  * Remote protocol enhancements (Linux kernel debugging, new packets
    for tracepoint support)

For a complete list and more details on each item, please see the
gdb/NEWS file.

-- 
Joel

(Log in to post comments)

GDB 7.1 released

Posted Mar 19, 2010 15:12 UTC (Fri) by tdz (guest, #58733) [Link]

Nice, but one thing seems curious to me:

> The major new features are:
> [...]
> Position Independent Executable (PIE) debugging.

Older releases of GDB could already debug PIC-compiled shared objects. So why is PIE support a major feature enhancement. It seems rather straightforward. Can someone enlighten me?

Regards
Thomas

GDB 7.1 released

Posted Mar 19, 2010 16:17 UTC (Fri) by amimjf (guest, #506) [Link]

A quick search of the gdb patches shows.

http://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2010-02/msg00289.html
http://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2010-02/msg00000.html

But yes, most of the work was done in,..

http://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2009-11/msg00167.html

GDB 7.1 released

Posted Mar 19, 2010 16:42 UTC (Fri) by lace (subscriber, #39526) [Link]

With PIC libraries you know where to load the new library symbols when the debugged program notifies you it has loaded the library at some specific address.

With PIE program you load first all its symbols pretending it is placed at some unknown (zero) address, setup all the breakpoints etc. Then user starts the program and only then you find out its real base address in memory. At that moment you have to relocate everything you already had setup.

But the problem were more various bugs not being hit with PIC and non-PIE code before.

GDB 7.1 released

Posted Mar 20, 2010 19:18 UTC (Sat) by tdz (guest, #58733) [Link]

Thanks to the people answering my question.

GDB 7.1 released

Posted Mar 20, 2010 14:19 UTC (Sat) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

Relatively new feature so don't blame yourself :-)

Introduced first in Fedora 11

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Archer

Enhanced further in Fedora 13

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/EasierPythonDebugging

Of course all the improvements get pushed upstream over a course of time as
well.