Debugging with GDB: Requirements

Debugging with GDB: Requirements

C.1 Requirements for Building GDB

Building GDB requires various tools and packages to be available. Other packages will be used only if they are found.

Tools/Packages Necessary for Building GDB

ISO C90 compiler: GDB is written in ISO C90. It should be buildable with any working C90 compiler, e.g. GCC.

Tools/Packages Optional for Building GDB

Expat

GDB can use the Expat XML parsing library. This library may be included with your operating system distribution; if it is not, you can get the latest version from http://expat.sourceforge.net. The configure script will search for this library in several standard locations; if it is installed in an unusual path, you can use the --with-libexpat-prefix option to specify its location.

Expat is used for:

Remote protocol memory maps (see Memory Map Format)
Target descriptions (see Target Descriptions)
Remote shared library lists (See Library List Format, or alternatively see Library List Format for SVR4 Targets)
MS-Windows shared libraries (see Shared Libraries)
Traceframe info (see Traceframe Info Format)
Branch trace (see Branch Trace Format, see Branch Trace Configuration Format)

MPFR

GDB can use the GNU MPFR multiple-precision floating-point library. This library may be included with your operating system distribution; if it is not, you can get the latest version from http://www.mpfr.org. The configure script will search for this library in several standard locations; if it is installed in an unusual path, you can use the --with-libmpfr-prefix option to specify its location.

GNU MPFR is used to emulate target floating-point arithmetic during expression evaluation when the target uses different floating-point formats than the host. If GNU MPFR it is not available, GDB will fall back to using host floating-point arithmetic.

zlib

GDB will use the ‘zlib’ library, if available, to read compressed debug sections. Some linkers, such as GNU gold, are capable of producing binaries with compressed debug sections. If GDB is compiled with ‘zlib’, it will be able to read the debug information in such binaries.

The ‘zlib’ library is likely included with your operating system distribution; if it is not, you can get the latest version from http://zlib.net.

iconv

GDB’s features related to character sets (see Character Sets) require a functioning iconv implementation. If you are on a GNU system, then this is provided by the GNU C Library. Some other systems also provide a working iconv.

If GDB is using the iconv program which is installed in a non-standard place, you will need to tell GDB where to find it. This is done with --with-iconv-bin which specifies the directory that contains the iconv program.

On systems without iconv, you can install GNU Libiconv. If you have previously installed Libiconv, you can use the --with-libiconv-prefix option to configure.

GDB’s top-level configure and Makefile will arrange to build Libiconv if a directory named libiconv appears in the top-most source directory. If Libiconv is built this way, and if the operating system does not provide a suitable iconv implementation, then the just-built library will automatically be used by GDB. One easy way to set this up is to download GNU Libiconv, unpack it, and then rename the directory holding the Libiconv source code to ‘libiconv’.