Debugging with GDB (February 2008)

Table Of Contents
Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing 39
delete [breakpoints] [range ...]
Delete the breakpoints, watchpoints, or catchpoints of the breakpoint ranges
specified as arguments. If no argument is specified, delete all breakpoints (GDB
asks confirmation, unless you have set confirm off). You can abbreviate this
command as d.
5.1.4 Disabling breakpoints
Rather than deleting a breakpoint, watchpoint, or catchpoint, you might prefer to disable
it. This makes the breakpoint inoperative as if it had been deleted, but remembers the
information on the breakpoint so that you can enable it again later.
You disable and enable breakpoints, watchpoints, and catchpoints with the enable and
disable commands, optionally specifying one or more breakpoint numbers as arguments.
Use info break or info watch to print a list of breakpoints, watchpoints, and catchpoints
if you do not know which numbers to use.
A breakpoint, watchpoint, or catchpoint can have any of four different states of enable-
ment:
Enabled. The breakpoint stops your program. A breakpoint set with the break com-
mand starts out in this state.
Disabled. The breakpoint has no effect on your program.
Enabled once. The breakpoint stops your program, but then becomes disabled.
Enabled for deletion. The breakpoint stops your program, but immediately after it
does so it is deleted permanently. A breakpoint set with the tbreak command starts
out in this state.
You can use the following commands to enable or disable breakpoints, watchpoints, and
catchpoints:
disable [breakpoints] [range ...]
Disable the specified breakpoints—or all breakpoints, if none are listed. A
disabled breakpoint has no effect but is not forgotten. All options such as
ignore-counts, conditions and commands are remembered in case the breakpoint
is enabled again later. You may abbreviate disable as dis.
enable [breakpoints] [range ...]
Enable the specified breakpoints (or all defined breakpoints). They become
effective once again in stopping your program.
enable [breakpoints] once range ...
Enable the specified breakpoints temporarily. GDB disables any of these break-
points immediately after stopping your program.
enable [breakpoints] delete range ...
Enable the specified breakpoints to work once, then die. GDB deletes any of
these breakpoints as soon as your program stops there.
Except for a breakpoint set with tbreak (see Section 5.1.1 [Setting breakpoints],
page 33), breakpoints that you set are initially enabled; subsequently, they become