source: general/prog/gdb.xml@ 975f600b

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE sect1 PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
   "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
  <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../../general.ent">
  %general-entities;

  <!ENTITY gdb-download-http "&gnu-http;/gdb/gdb-&gdb-version;.tar.xz">
  <!ENTITY gdb-download-ftp  "&gnu-ftp;/gdb/gdb-&gdb-version;.tar.xz">
  <!ENTITY gdb-md5sum        "c3d35cd949084be53b92cc1e03485f88">
  <!ENTITY gdb-size          "19 MB">
  <!ENTITY gdb-buildsize     "450 MB (add 193 MB for tests, add 677 MB for docs)">
  <!ENTITY gdb-time          "4.3 SBU (add 27 SBU for tests, add 0.7 for docs)">
]>

<sect1 id="gdb" xreflabel="GDB-&gdb-version;">
  <?dbhtml filename="gdb.html"?>

  <sect1info>
    <othername>$LastChangedBy$</othername>
    <date>$Date$</date>
  </sect1info>

  <title>GDB-&gdb-version;</title>

  <indexterm zone="gdb">
    <primary sortas="a-GDB">GDB</primary>
  </indexterm>

  <sect2 role="package">
    <title>Introduction to GDB</title>

    <para>
      <application>GDB</application>, the GNU Project debugger, allows you
      to see what is going on <quote>inside</quote> another program while it
      executes -- or what another program was doing at the moment it crashed.
      Note that <application>GDB</application> is most effective when tracing
      programs and libraries that were built with debugging symbols and not
      stripped.
    </para>

    &lfs81_checked;

    <bridgehead renderas="sect3">Package Information</bridgehead>
    <itemizedlist spacing="compact">
      <listitem>
        <para>
          Download (HTTP): <ulink url="&gdb-download-http;"/>
        </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
        <para>
          Download (FTP): <ulink url="&gdb-download-ftp;"/>
        </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
        <para>
          Download MD5 sum: &gdb-md5sum;
        </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
        <para>
          Download size: &gdb-size;
        </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
        <para>
          Estimated disk space required: &gdb-buildsize;
        </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
        <para>
          Estimated build time: &gdb-time;
        </para>
      </listitem>
    </itemizedlist>

    <bridgehead renderas="sect3">GDB Dependencies</bridgehead>

    <bridgehead renderas="sect4">Optional</bridgehead>
    <para role="optional">
      <xref linkend="dejagnu"/> (for tests),
      <xref linkend="doxygen"/>,
      <xref linkend="gcc"/> (gfortran, for some tests),
      <xref linkend="guile"/> (currently broken),
      <xref linkend="python2"/>,
      <xref linkend="rust"/> (for some tests),
      <xref linkend="valgrind"/>, and
      <ulink url="https://sourceware.org/systemtap/">SystemTap</ulink>
      (run-time dependency, also used in a few tests)
    </para>

    <para condition="html" role="usernotes">User Notes:
      <ulink url="&blfs-wiki;/gdb"/>
    </para>
  </sect2>

  <sect2 role="installation">
    <title>Installation of GDB</title>

    <para>
      Install <application>GDB</application> by running the following
      commands:
    </para>

<screen><userinput>./configure --prefix=/usr --with-system-readline --without-guile &amp;&amp;
make</userinput></screen>

    <para>
      Optionally, to build the API documentation using
      <xref linkend="doxygen"/>, run:
    </para>

<screen><userinput>make -C gdb/doc doxy</userinput></screen>

    <para>
      To test the results, issue:
    </para>

<screen><userinput>pushd gdb/testsuite &amp;&amp;
make  site.exp      &amp;&amp;
echo  "set gdb_test_timeout 120" &gt;&gt; site.exp &amp;&amp;
runtest TRANSCRIPT=y
popd</userinput></screen>

    <para>
      See <emphasis>gdb/testsuite/README</emphasis> and <ulink
      url="https://sourceware.org/gdb/wiki/TestingGDB">TestingGDB</ulink>.
      There are many problems with the test suite:
    </para>
      
    <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
        <para>
          Clean directories are needed if re-running the tests.  For that
          reason, it is recommended to make a copy of the compiled source code
          directory before the tests in case you need to run the tests again. 
        </para>
      </listitem>
        
      <listitem>
        <para>
          Results depend on installed compilers.
        </para>
      </listitem>
        
<!-- They worked fine for me. [renodr] 7.11.1 -->

<!--
      <listitem>
        <para>
          If run remotely over an ssh connection, the tests will hang 
          and require a hard (power cycle) reset of the system.
        </para>
      </listitem>
-->
        
      <listitem>
        <para>
          There are a large number of timeouts (there is a variable 
          that can be set to increase time for timeout, but 
          changing it will result in a different number of tests being 
          run).
        </para>
      </listitem>
        
      <listitem>
        <para>
          There are failures associated with system readline 6.x.
        </para>
      </listitem>
        
      <listitem>
        <para>
          A few tests assume that the header file
          <filename>&lt;sys/sdt.h&gt;</filename>, part of <ulink
          url="https://sourceware.org/systemtap/">SystemTap</ulink>, is
          present.
        </para>
      </listitem>
        
      <listitem>
        <para>
          About 3% of the tests fail (out of over 35000 tests). 
        </para>
      </listitem>
        
    </itemizedlist>

    <para>
      Now, as the <systemitem class="username">root</systemitem> user:
    </para>

<screen role="root"><userinput>make -C gdb install</userinput></screen>

    <para>
      If you have built the API documentation, it is now in gdb/doc/doxy.
      You can install it (as the <systemitem class="username">root</systemitem>
      user):
    </para>

<screen role="root"><userinput>install -d /usr/share/doc/gdb-&gdb-version; &amp;&amp;
rm -rf gdb/doc/doxy/xml &amp;&amp;
cp -Rv gdb/doc/doxy /usr/share/doc/gdb-&gdb-version;</userinput></screen>

  </sect2>

  <sect2 role="commands">
    <title>Command Explanations</title>
     
    <para>
      <parameter>--without-guile</parameter>: This switch disables support
      for <application>Guile</application> since version 2.2 changed the way
      that C ports were handled.
    </para>

    <para>
      <parameter>--with-system-readline</parameter>: This switch forces
      <application>GDB</application> to use the copy of
      <application>Readline</application> installed in LFS.
    </para>

  </sect2>

  <sect2 role="content">
    <title>Contents</title>

    <segmentedlist>
      <segtitle>Installed Programs</segtitle>
      <segtitle>Installed Library</segtitle>
      <segtitle>Installed Directories</segtitle>

      <seglistitem>
        <seg>
          gcore, gdb and gdbserver
        </seg>
        <seg>
          libinproctrace.so
        </seg>
        <seg>
          /usr/{include,share}/gdb and /usr/share/doc/gdb-&gdb-version;
        </seg>
      </seglistitem>
    </segmentedlist>

    <variablelist>
      <bridgehead renderas="sect3">Short Descriptions</bridgehead>
      <?dbfo list-presentation="list"?>
      <?dbhtml list-presentation="table"?>

      <varlistentry id="gcore">
        <term><command>gcore</command></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>
            generates a core dump of a running program.
          </para>
          <indexterm zone="gdb gcore">
            <primary sortas="b-gcore">gcore</primary>
          </indexterm>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry id="gdb-prog">
        <term><command>gdb</command></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>
            is the GNU Debugger.
          </para>
          <indexterm zone="gdb gdb-prog">
            <primary sortas="b-gdb-prog">gdb-prog</primary>
          </indexterm>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry id="gdbserver">
        <term><command>gdbserver</command></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>
            is a remote server for the GNU debugger (it allows programs
            to be debugged from a different machine).
          </para>
          <indexterm zone="gdb gdbserver">
            <primary sortas="b-gdbserver">gdbserver</primary>
          </indexterm>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry id="libinproctrace">
        <term><filename class="libraryfile">libinproctrace.so</filename></term>
        <listitem>
          <para>
            contains functions for the in-process tracing agent. The agent
            allows for installing fast tracepoints, listing static tracepoint
            markers, probing static tracepoints markers, and starting trace
            monitoring.
          </para>
          <indexterm zone="gdb libinproctrace">
            <primary sortas="c-libinproctrace">libinproctrace.so</primary>
          </indexterm>
        </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

    </variablelist>

  </sect2>

</sect1>