GDB 8.3 Released

"Release 8.3 of GDB, the GNU Debugger, is now available," according to an announcement on the info-gnu mailing list:

GDB is a source-level debugger for Ada, C, C++, 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. GDB 8.3 includes support for new native configurations (also available as a target configuration) for RISC-V GNU/Linux and RISC-V FreeBSD.

The announcement warns that Native Windows debugging "is only supported on Windows XP or later," and that "the Python API in GDB now requires Python 2.6 or later."

Not a tool for amateurs

[gweihir]

For those have the background and are willing to invest a bit of time, this is likely the best and most versatile debugger around. Great to see a new version.

Re:

[Excelcia]

I agree it's fantastic, though I'm not sure I'd say it's not for amateurs. Lot of front ends use GDB. I thnk Lazarus uses it, and gdbgui is really good. I myself got started on GDB it through ddd, which was one of the first real front ends.

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

"Not for amateurs" is an understatement. db was the debugger cavemen used to debug fire, and gdb has done little since then except add a g in front. Does anyone know of a full-screen but non-GUI, i.e text-mode-only front-end for it that matches the UI that other debuggers have had since at least the 1980s? Serious question, is there something out there that makes it less painful to use, just a standard full-screen step-through-the-source-code style debugger?

Re: Not a tool for amateurs

[Anonymous Coward]

Just type Ctrl-x-a in gdb.

Re:

[hankwang]

Gdb-mode in emacs?

I'm not sure what people use debuggers for, though. I used the Turbo Pascal debugger when I did my first bits of coding, but nowadays rarely feel the need. I write code such that I can do tests that take less than a second to run; experimenting and occasional printf statements are more effective for me than setting up breakpoints that only trigger in the 1234th iteration. (Most of my present work is number crunching.). I did once have to debug C code (in DOS) that interfaced with hardware,

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

Since you mentioned Turbo Debugger, that debugger, circa 1988, was a significant improvement over most of its successors.

Warns that only works on XP or later?

[Excelcia]

XP or later? As opposed to... Windows ME? 2000? Seriously? While we're at it, are there any Model T owners out there complaining that there are no alloy rims that fit on it out of the box?

Re:

[phantomfive]

Windows 2000 is better than Windows XP.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

If you want the Win2k experience on Windows XP, just turn off themes. XP actually included a number of relevant new features, like ClearType.

Re:Warns that only works on XP or later?

[Aighearach]

You're shocked, but free software doesn't always have the bloat, thrash, and lack of portability that proprietary software users seem to think is "normal."

Long story short, if you're on pre-XP no problem, but you'll need to run the *nix version inside Cygwin instead of the native Windows version.

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

Long story short, if you're on pre-XP no problem, but you'll need to run the *nix version inside Cygwin instead of the native Windows version.

If you're on pre-XP AND need the absolutely latest mid 2019 GDB then you'll have to do that. Chances are though, GDB 8.2 will continue to serve you well enough for a while yet.

STL

[rastos1]

Can it print STL strings and containers? Without some python hacks?

Maybe I'm inept

[Progman3K]

But I've never been able to debug mingw-compiled Windows app on linux.
I realize it would probably be pretty involved; you'd probably need to be debugging Wine, and find a way to set the breakpoints in the application that Wine is running...

That is basically the ONLY reason I still have a Windows workstation and Devstudio, because if I could debug Win32 apps on linux, I would never need to run Windows

GDB: The GNU Project Debugger

[najajomo]

What is GDB? [gnu.org] “GDB, the GNU Project debugger, allows you to see what is going on `inside' another program while it executes -- or what another program was doing at the moment it crashed.”