GDB 7.0 released

[yan]

The major new features are:

  * Python scripting support
  * Reverse debugging, Process record and replay
  * Non-stop debugging
  * Multi-architecture debugging
  * Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging
  

It also features many enhancements and bug fixes, including:

  * GDB now has an interface for JIT compilation
  * Tracepoints may now be conditional
  * Multi-byte and wide character set support
  * New /r and /m modifiers for the "disassemble" command
  * Automatic retrieval of shared library files from remote targets
  * Inlined functions are now supported
  * New remote protocal packets
  * GDB is now able to read compressed debug sections
  * Thread switching is now supported on Tru64
  * Ada task switching is now supported
  * New features in gdbserver, the GDB remote stub
  * New command to stop execution when a system call is made

[glhaynes]

I'd be really interested to know a bit more about some of these. Anybody know what "non-stop" or "multi-inferior" debugging are? And what sort of benefit is gained from using multi-process debugging rather than having a separate gdb attached to each process?

Anyway, sounds like an awesomely good release.

[tmm1]

Reverse debugging, awesome! http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/news/reversible.html

[speek]

The reverse debugging is built on http://dmtcp.sourceforge.net/ (if I recall correctly). It's really neat technology

[msnyder]

This is available now, in the just released gdb-7.0. Debug any native Linux process in reverse, on x86 and x86_64 architectures. Reverse-continue, reverse-step, reverse-next, and so on. It's pretty fast, too!

[msnyder]

Oh, and there is an online tutorial at http://sourceware.org/gdb/wiki/ProcessRecord/Tutorial

[Dauntless]

Cool. Visual Studio 2010 was supposed to do that also, I'm glad to hear GDB already has it.

[bbsabelli]

Love GDB. It has saved my life many times, but who uses it anymore? Not trolling, just curious. Managed code has won, has it not?

[bct]

Webapps and x86 have "won" too, but if you think nobody writes code for anything else you're awfully sheltered.

[biohacker42]

There's plenty of C/C++ work. A lot of legacy but a good chunk of new stuff too.

[pgbovine]

as other posters on this thread have mentioned, i think it really depends on the community you belong to ... many GNU open-source hackers swear by C and won't touch managed code with a ten-foot-long stick because of their associations with Sun (Java) and MSFT (.NET) ... whereas if you're writing enterprise applications in a big company, your entire firm is probably on .NET and would scoff at those unix hippies still using command-line gdb :) joelonsoftware has an article entitled Biculturalism that addresses this issue:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Biculturalism.html

[amichail]

Apple's Xcode uses GDB.

[stonemetal]

open source evidently: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/21/open_source_projects...

[GeneralMaximus]

No, not yet. C and C++ are not only alive, but thriving.

[icefox]

I used it last night :)

[grogers]

Its a shame that the c++ pretty printers are packaged with libstdc++ (ie with gcc sources) not with gdb.

[mapleoin]

why?

[known]

truss and strace are also good debugging tools where GDB is not applicable for e.g. to debug sockets based client-server system

[jws]

The gdb "attach" command is handy for those too.