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4.69. gdb

Updated gdb packages that fix multiple bugs and add three enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
The GNU Debugger (GDB) allows users to debug programs written in C, C++, and other languages by executing them in a controlled fashion and then printing out their data.

Bug Fixes

BZ#669432
Prior to this update, GDB could stop on error when trying to access the libpthread shared library before the library was relocated. Fixed GDB lets the relocations to be resolved first, making such program debuggable.
BZ#669434
The Intel Fortran Compiler records certain debug info symbols in uppercase but the gfortran compiler writes case-insensitive symbols in lowercase. As a result, GDB could terminate unexpectedly when accessing uppercase characters in the debug information from the Intel Fortran Compiler. With this update, GDB properly implements case insensitivity and ignores the symbols case in the symbol files.
BZ#692386
When the user selected the "-statistics" option with a negative number as a result, GDB printed the minus sign twice. This has been fixed and GDB now displays negative numbers with one minus sign only.
BZ#697900
On the PowerPC and the IBM System z architectures, GDB displayed only LWP (light-weight process) identifiers which matched the Linux TID (Thread Identifier) values for the threads found in the core file. GDB has been fixed to initialize the libthread_db threads debugging library when accessing the core file. GDB now correctly displays the pthread_t identifier in addition to the LWP identifier on the aforementioned architectures.
BZ#702427
Structure field offsets above 65535 described by the DWARF DW_AT_data_member_location attribute were improperly interpreted as a 0 value. GDB has been modified and can now handle also large structures and their fields.
BZ#704010
The difference between the very closely related "ptype" and "whatis" commands was not clearly defined in the gdb info manual. Detailed differences between these commands have been described in the manual.
BZ#712117
Prior to this update, the "info sources" subcommand printed only relative paths to the source files. GDB has been modified to correctly display the full path name to the source file.
BZ#730475
Modifying a string in the executable using the "-write" command line option could fail with an error if the executable was not running. With this update, GDB can modify executables even before they are started.

Enhancements

BZ#696890
With this update, Float16 instructions on future Intel processors are now supported.
BZ#698001
Debugged programs can open many shared libraries on demand at runtime using the dlopen() function. Prior to this update, tracking shared libraries that were in use by the debugged program could lead to overhead. The debugging performance of GDB has been improved: the overhead is now lower if applications load many objects.
BZ#718141
Prior to this update, GDB did not handle DWARF 4 .debug_types data correctly. Now, GDB can correctly process data in the DWARF 4 format.
All GDB users are advised to upgrade to these updated gdb packages, which fix these bugs and add these enhancements.