Debugging with GDB (February 2008)
Table Of Contents
- Summary of GDB
- A Sample GDB Session
- Getting In and Out of GDB
- GDB Commands
- Running Programs Under GDB
- Stopping and Continuing
- Examining the Stack
- Examining Source Files
- Examining Data
- Using GDB with Different Languages
- Examining the Symbol Table
- Altering Execution
- GDB Files
- Specifying a Debugging Target
- HP-UX Configuration-Specific Information
- Summary of HP Enhancements to GDB
- HP-UX dependencies
- Supported Platforms and Modes
- HP-UX targets
- Support for Alternate root
- Specifying object file directories
- Fix and continue debugging
- Inline Support
- Debugging Macros
- Debugging Memory Problems
- When to suspect a memory leak
- Memory debugging restrictions
- Memory Debugging Methodologies
- Debugging Memory in Interactive Mode
- Debugging Memory in Batch Mode
- Debugging Memory Interactively After Attaching to a Running Process
- Configuring memory debugging settings
- Scenarios in memory debugging
- Stop when freeing unallocated or deallocated blocks
- Stop when freeing a block if bad writes occurred outside block boundary
- Stop when a specified block address is allocated or deallocated
- Scramble previous memory contents at malloc/free calls
- Detect dangling pointers and dangling blocks
- Detect in-block corruption of freed blocks
- Specify the amount of guard bytes for every block of allocated memory
- Comparison of Memory Debugging Commands in Interactive Mode and Batch Mode
- Heap Profiling
- Memory Checking Analysis for User Defined Memory Management Routines
- Commands to track the change in data segment value
- Thread Debugging Support
- Debugging MPI Programs
- Debugging multiple processes ( programs with fork and vfork calls)
- Debugging Core Files
- Printing the Execution Path Entries for the Current Frame or Thread
- Invoking GDB Before a Program Aborts
- Aborting a Command Line Call
- Instruction Level Stepping
- Enhanced support for watchpoints and breakpoints
- Debugging support for shared libraries
- Language support
- Enhanced Java Debugging Support
- Commands for Examining Java Virtual Machine(JVM) internals
- Support for stack traces in Java, C, and C++ programs
- Support for 64-bit Java, C, aC++ stack unwinding
- Enhanced support for C++ templates
- Support for __fpreg data type on IPF
- Support for _Complex variables in HP C
- Support for debugging namespaces
- Command for evaluating the address of an expression
- Viewing Wide Character Strings
- Support for output logging
- Getting information from a non-debug executable
- Debugging optimized code
- Visual Interface for WDB
- Starting and stopping Visual Interface for WDB
- Navigating the Visual Interface for WDB display
- Specifying foreground and background colors
- Using the X-window graphical interface
- Using the TUI mode
- Changing the size of the source or debugger pane
- Using commands to browse through source files
- Loading source files
- Editing source files
- Editing the command line and command-line history
- Saving the contents of a debugging session to a file
- Support for ddd
- Support for XDB commands
- GNU GDB Logging Commands
- Support for command line calls in a stripped executable
- Displaying the current block scope information
- Linux support
- The HP-UX Terminal User Interface
- XDB to WDB Transition Guide
- By-function lists of XDB commands and HP WDB equivalents
- Overall breakpoint commands
- XDB data formats and HP WDB equivalents
- XDB location syntax and HP WDB equivalents
- XDB special language operators and HP WDB equivalents
- XDB special variables and HP WDB equivalents
- XDB variable identifiers and HP WDB equivalents
- Alphabetical lists of XDB commands and HP WDB equivalents
- Controlling GDB
- Canned Sequences of Commands
- Using GDB under gnu Emacs
- GDB Annotations
- The gdb/mi Interface
- Function and purpose
- Notation and terminology
- gdb/mi Command Syntax
- gdb/mi compatibility with CLI
- gdb/mi output records
- gdb/mi command description format
- gdb/mi breakpoint table commands
- gdb/mi Data manipulation
- gdb/mi program control
- Miscellaneous GDB commands in gdb/mi
- gdb/mi Stack Manipulation Commands
- gdb/mi Symbol query commands
- gdb/mi Target Manipulation Commands
- gdb/mi thread commands
- gdb/mi tracepoint commands
- gdb/mi variable objects
- Reporting Bugs in GDB
- Installing GDB
- Index

Appendix A: Installing GDB 331
Appendix A Installing GDB
If you obtain GDB (WDB) as part of the HP ANSI C, HP ANSI C++ Developer’s Kit
for HP-UX Release 11.x, or HP Fortran, you do not have to take any special action to build
or install GDB.
If you obtain GDB (WDB) from an HP web site, you may download either an swinstall
package or a source tree, or both.
Most customers will want to install the GDB binary that is part of the swinstall
package. To do so, use a command of the form
/usr/sbin/swinstall -s package-name WDB
Alternatively, it is possible to build GDB from the source distribution. If you want to
modify the debugger sources to tailor GDB to your needs, you may wish to do this. The
source distribution consists of a tar file containing the source tree rooted at ‘gdb-4.17/...’.
The instructions that follow describe how to build a ‘gdb’ executable from this source
tree. HP believes that these instructions apply to the WDB source tree that it distributes.
However, HP does not explicitly support building a ‘gdb’ for any non-HP platform from
the WDB source tree. It may work, but HP has not tested it for any platforms other than
those described in the WDB Release Notes.
You can find additional information specific to Hewlett-Packard in the ‘README.HP.WDB’
file at the root of the source tree.
GDB comes with a configure script that automates the process of preparing GDB for
installation; you can then use make to build the gdb program.
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The GDB distribution includes all the source code you need for GDB in a single directory,
whose name is usually composed by appending the version number to ‘gdb’.
For example, the GDB version gdb-199991101 distribution is in the ‘gdb-gdb-199991101’
directory. That directory contains:
gdb-gdb-199991101/configure (and supporting files)
script for configuring GDB and all its supporting libraries
gdb-gdb-199991101/gdb
the source specific to GDB itself
gdb-gdb-199991101/bfd
source for the Binary File Descriptor library
gdb-gdb-199991101/include
gnu include files
gdb-gdb-199991101/libiberty
source for the ‘-liberty’ free software library
gdb-gdb-199991101/opcodes
source for the library of opcode tables and disassemblers
gdb-gdb-199991101/readline
source for the gnu command-line interface
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If you have a more recent version of GDB than gdb-199991101, look at the ‘README’ file in the sources;
we may have improved the installation procedures since publishing this manual.