Editing GNU Debugger (section)

===Features===
GDB offers extensive facilities for tracing and altering the execution of [[computer program]]s. The user can monitor and modify the values of programs' internal [[variable (programming)|variables]], and even call [[subroutine|functions]] independently of the program's normal behavior.

GDB target processors (as of 2003){{needs update|date=March 2025}} include: [[DEC Alpha|Alpha]], [[ARM architecture family|ARM]], [[Atmel AVR|AVR]], [[Hitachi H8|H8/300]], Altera [[Nios (computer processor)|Nios]]/[[Nios II]], [[System/370]], [[System 390]], [[x86]] and its 64-bit extension [[x86-64]], [[Itanium|IA-64]] "Itanium", [[Motorola 68000]], [[MIPS architecture|MIPS]], [[PA-RISC]], [[PowerPC]], [[RISC-V]], [[SuperH]], [[SPARC]], and [[VAX]]. Lesser-known target processors supported in the standard release have included [[A29K]], [[ARC (processor)|ARC]], [[ETRAX CRIS]], [[D10V]], [[D30V]], [[FR-30]], [[FR-V]], [[Intel i960]], [[Motorola 68HC11|68HC11]], [[Motorola 88000]], [[MCORE]], [[MN10200]], [[MN10300]], [[320xx microprocessor|NS32K]], [[Stormy16]], and [[Zilog Z8000|Z8000]].  (Newer releases will likely not support some of these.) GDB has compiled-in [[Instruction set simulator|simulators]] for even lesser-known target processors such like [[M32R]] or [[V850]].<ref>{{cite web
 |      title = GDB Documentation - Summary - Contributors
 |      url = http://sourceware.org/gdb/current/onlinedocs/gdb/Contributors.html#Contributors
 |      access-date = 2011-12-01
 |      archive-date = 2011-09-29
 |      archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110929153415/http://sourceware.org/gdb/current/onlinedocs/gdb/Contributors.html#Contributors
 |      url-status = dead
 }}</ref>

GDB is still actively being developed. As of version 7.0 new features include support for [[Python (programming language)|Python]] scripting<ref>{{cite web
 |      title = GDB 7.0 Release Notes
 |        url = http://sourceware.org/gdb/wiki/GDB_7.0_Release
 | access-date = 2011-11-28
}}</ref> and as of version 7.8 [[GNU Guile]] scripting as well.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://sourceware.org/ml/gdb/2014-07/msg00032.html |title=GDB 7.8 released! |author=Joel Brobecker |date=2014-07-29 |access-date=2014-07-30}}</ref> Since version 7.0, support for "reversible debugging" — allowing a debugging session to step backward, much like rewinding a crashed program to see what happened — is available.<ref>{{cite web
 |      title = Reverse Debugging with GDB
 |        url = https://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/news/reversible.html
 | access-date = 2014-01-20
}}</ref>