GDB 16.3 released!

Sun Apr 20 18:00:58 GMT 2025

            GDB 16.3 released!

Release 16.3 of GDB, the GNU Debugger, is now available.  GDB is
a source-level debugger for Ada, C, C++, Fortran, Go, Rust, 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.
GDB is free (libre) software.

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

        https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gdb/?C=M;O=D

The vital stats:

  Size   sha256sum                                                         Name
  24MiB  bcfcd095528a987917acf9fff3f1672181694926cc18d609c99d0042c00224c5  gdb-16.3.tar.xz
  40MiB  86015081217dc82c5485db9ce864dcc0b703759d2bdbe4441b095c5f900a6a37  gdb-16.3.tar.gz

There is a web page for GDB at:

        https://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 source 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 16.3 brings the following fixes and enhancements over GDB 16.2:

 * PR symtab/32309 ([gdb/symtab, fission] gdb/dwarf2/read.h:289: internal-error: version: Assertion `m_dwarf_version != 0' failed)

 * PR corefiles/32441 (gdb segfaults when generating a core file if target_fileio_read_alloc fails)

 * PR tui/32623 (TUI console window doesn't update while inferior is running)

 * PR corefiles/32634 ([gdb/corefiles] segfault in gdb.arch/i386-biarch-core.exp)

 * PR backtrace/32757 ("Assertion `stashed' failed" when inline frame #0 is duplicated)

 * PR tdep/32770 ([gdb/tdep, i386] FAIL: gdb.reverse/recvmsg-reverse.exp: continue to breakpoint: marker2)

 * PR gdb/32775 ([AArch64] gdbserver crashes on SVE/SME-enabled systems)

 * PR record/32784 ([gdb/record, aarch64] Stack smashing detected in aarch64_record_asimd_load_store)

 * PR tui/32797 (Escape sequences to only reset foreground or background color to default fail)

 * PR gdb/32828 (gstack regression: missing file names and line numbers)

GDB 16.2 brings the following fixes and enhancements over GDB 16.1:

 * PR build/32578 (cannot build GDB 16.1 out of tree when calling the configure script with a relative path)

 * PR tui/32592 ([gdb/tui] internal error in tui-winsource.c:340:refresh_window)

 * PR remote/32593 (Incompatibilities between GDB's and LLDB's 'x' packet implementation)

 * PR build/32610 (Missing #include file in darwin_nat.c)

GDB 16.1 includes the following changes and enhancements:

* record/replay support now available on loongarch*-linux*

* GDB now supports watchpoints for tagged data pointers.

* MTE (Memory Tagging Extension) debugging is now supported on AArch64
   baremetal.

* New bash script gstack uses GDB to print stack traces of running processes.

* Enhanced breakpoint support

  ** For breakpoints that are created in the 'pending' state, any
     'thread' or 'task' keywords are parsed at the time the breakpoint is
     created, rather than at the time the breakpoint becomes non-pending.

  ** Thread-specific breakpoints are only inserted into the program space
     in which the thread of interest is running.

* Enhanced Intel Processor Trace support

  ** Support for printing of asynchronous events

  ** Support for printing of ptwrite payloads

* Changed commands

  ** The "remove-symbol-file -a ADDRESS" command now accepts a full expression
     as the ADDRESS.

  ** The "show configuration" command now prints the version of GNU
     readline that GDB is using.

  ** The "maintenance print remote-registers" now provides an "Expedited"
     column indicating which registers were included in the last stop reply
     packet received by GDB.

  ** Various command taking filenames as argument now require file names
     to be quoted if the argument contains white spaces or quote characters.

* Python API changes

  ** New module gdb.missing_objfile that facilitates dealing with
     missing objfiles when opening a core-file. GDB commands to query,
     enable and disable handlers created using this API have also
     been added.

  ** New event gdb.tui_enabled.

  ** Added the gdb.Symbol.is_artificial attribute.

  ** New gdb.record.clear function to clear the trace data of
     the current recording.

  ** The 'signed' argument to gdb.Architecture.integer_type() will no
     longer accept non-bool types.

  ** The gdb.MICommand.installed property can only be set to True or
     False.

  ** The 'qualified' argument to gdb.Breakpoint constructor will no
     longer accept non-bool types.

* Debugger Adapter Protocol changes

  ** The "scopes" request will now return a scope holding global
     variables from the stack frame's compilation unit.

  ** The "scopes" request will return a "returnValue" scope holding
     the return value from the latest "stepOut" command, when
     appropriate.

  ** The "launch" and "attach" requests were rewritten in accordance
     with some clarifications to the spec.  Now they can be sent at
     any time after the "initialized" event, but will not take effect
     (or send a response) until after the "configurationDone" request
     has been sent.

  ** The "variables" request will not return artificial symbols.

* Remote Protocol

  ** New remote packet: vFile:stat

  ** New remote packet: x addr,length

* Miscellaneous

  ** The Ada 'Object_Size attribute is now supported.

  ** Styling now available for line numbers, GDB commands and header lines
     of lists.

  ** It is now possible to turn the warning emitted when specifying
     a language that does not match the current frame off.

  ** For ARM targets, the offset of the pc in the jmp_buf has been fixed
     to match glibc 2.20 and later.  This should only matter when not
     using libc probes.  This may cause breakage when using an incompatible
     libc, like uclibc or newlib, or an older glibc.

* Deprecated or removed

  ** Support for QNX Neutrino has been removed
  ** Support for Nios II targets has been removed
  ** Support for Intel MPX has been removed

For a complete list and more details on each item, please see the gdb/NEWS
file, available at:
https://sourceware.org/git/gitweb.cgi?p=binutils-gdb.git;a=blob_plain;f=gdb/NEWS;hb=gdb-16.3-release

-- 
Joel Brobecker