10.3. GDB
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, the GDB debugger is based on the gdb-7.6.1 release, and includes numerous enhancements and bug fixes relative to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 equivalent.
This version corresponds to GDB in Red Hat Developer Toolset 2.1; a detailed comparison of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 GDB versions can be seen here:
Notable new features of GDB included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 are the following:
- Faster loading of symbols using the new
.gdb_indexsection and the newgdb-add-indexshell command. Note that this feature is already present in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 and later; - gdbserver now supports standard input/output (STDIO) connections, for example:
(gdb) target remote | ssh myhost gdbserver - hello; - Improved behavior of the
watchcommand using the-locationparameter; - Virtual method tables can be displayed by a new command,
info vtbl; - Control of automatic loading of files by new commands
info auto-load,set auto-load, andshow auto-load; - Displaying absolute path to source file names using the
set filename-display absolutecommand; - Control flow recording with hardware support by a new command,
record btrace.
Notable bug fixes in GDB included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 are the following:
- The
info proccommand has been updated to work on core files; - Breakpoints are now set on all matching locations in all inferiors;
- The file name part of breakpoint location now matches trailing components of a source file name;
- Breakpoints can now be put on inline functions;
- Parameters of the template are now put in scope when the template is instantiated.
In addition, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 provides a new package, gdb-doc, which contains the GDB Manual in PDF, HTML, and info formats. The GDB Manual was part of the main RPM package in previous versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
