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C.1 Requirements for Building GDB Requirements for building GDB C.2 Invoking the GDB `configure' Script Invoking the GDB `configure' script C.3 Compiling GDB in Another Directory Compiling GDB in another directory C.4 Specifying Names for Hosts and Targets Specifying names for hosts and targets C.5 `configure' Options Summary of options for configure C.6 System-wide configuration and settings Having a system-wide init file
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Building GDB requires various tools and packages to be available. Other packages will be used only if they are found.
Expat is used for:
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 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'.
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make to
build the gdb program.
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 7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) distribution is in the `gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) ' directory. That directory contains:
gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) /configure (and supporting files)
gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) /gdb
gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) /bfd
gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) /include
gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) /libiberty
gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) /opcodes
gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) /readline
gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) /glob
gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) /mmalloc
The simplest way to configure and build GDB is to run `configure' from the `gdb-version-number' source directory, which in this example is the `gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) ' directory.
First switch to the `gdb-version-number' source directory if you are not already in it; then run `configure'. Pass the identifier for the platform on which GDB will run as an argument.
For example:
cd gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) ./configure host make |
where host is an identifier such as `sun4' or `decstation', that identifies the platform where GDB will run. (You can often leave off host; `configure' tries to guess the correct value by examining your system.)
Running `configure host' and then running make builds the
`bfd', `readline', `mmalloc', and `libiberty'
libraries, then gdb itself. The configured source files, and the
binaries, are left in the corresponding source directories.
`configure' is a Bourne-shell (/bin/sh) script; if your
system does not recognize this automatically when you run a different
shell, you may need to run sh on it explicitly:
sh configure host |
If you run `configure' from a directory that contains source directories for multiple libraries or programs, such as the `gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) ' source directory for version 7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) , `configure' creates configuration files for every directory level underneath (unless you tell it not to, with the `--norecursion' option).
You should run the `configure' script from the top directory in the source tree, the `gdb-version-number' directory. If you run `configure' from one of the subdirectories, you will configure only that subdirectory. That is usually not what you want. In particular, if you run the first `configure' from the `gdb' subdirectory of the `gdb-version-number' directory, you will omit the configuration of `bfd', `readline', and other sibling directories of the `gdb' subdirectory. This leads to build errors about missing include files such as `bfd/bfd.h'.
You can install gdb anywhere; it has no hardwired paths.
However, you should make sure that the shell on your path (named by
the `SHELL' environment variable) is publicly readable. Remember
that GDB uses the shell to start your program--some systems refuse to
let GDB debug child processes whose programs are not readable.
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If you want to run GDB versions for several host or target machines,
you need a different gdb compiled for each combination of
host and target. `configure' is designed to make this easy by
allowing you to generate each configuration in a separate subdirectory,
rather than in the source directory. If your make program
handles the `VPATH' feature (GNU make does), running
make in each of these directories builds the gdb
program specified there.
To build gdb in a separate directory, run `configure'
with the `--srcdir' option to specify where to find the source.
(You also need to specify a path to find `configure'
itself from your working directory. If the path to `configure'
would be the same as the argument to `--srcdir', you can leave out
the `--srcdir' option; it is assumed.)
For example, with version 7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) , you can build GDB in a separate directory for a Sun 4 like this:
cd gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) mkdir ../gdb-sun4 cd ../gdb-sun4 ../gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) /configure sun4 make |
When `configure' builds a configuration using a remote source directory, it creates a tree for the binaries with the same structure (and using the same names) as the tree under the source directory. In the example, you'd find the Sun 4 library `libiberty.a' in the directory `gdb-sun4/libiberty', and GDB itself in `gdb-sun4/gdb'.
Make sure that your path to the `configure' script has just one instance of `gdb' in it. If your path to `configure' looks like `../gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) /gdb/configure', you are configuring only one subdirectory of GDB, not the whole package. This leads to build errors about missing include files such as `bfd/bfd.h'.
One popular reason to build several GDB configurations in separate directories is to configure GDB for cross-compiling (where GDB runs on one machine--the host---while debugging programs that run on another machine--the target). You specify a cross-debugging target by giving the `--target=target' option to `configure'.
When you run make to build a program or library, you must run
it in a configured directory--whatever directory you were in when you
called `configure' (or one of its subdirectories).
The Makefile that `configure' generates in each source
directory also runs recursively. If you type make in a source
directory such as `gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) ' (or in a separate configured
directory configured with `--srcdir=dirname/gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) '), you
will build all the required libraries, and then build GDB.
When you have multiple hosts or targets configured in separate
directories, you can run make on them in parallel (for example,
if they are NFS-mounted on each of the hosts); they will not interfere
with each other.
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The specifications used for hosts and targets in the `configure' script are based on a three-part naming scheme, but some short predefined aliases are also supported. The full naming scheme encodes three pieces of information in the following pattern:
architecture-vendor-os |
For example, you can use the alias sun4 as a host argument,
or as the value for target in a --target=target
option. The equivalent full name is `sparc-sun-sunos4'.
The `configure' script accompanying GDB does not provide
any query facility to list all supported host and target names or
aliases. `configure' calls the Bourne shell script
config.sub to map abbreviations to full names; you can read the
script, if you wish, or you can use it to test your guesses on
abbreviations--for example:
% sh config.sub i386-linux i386-pc-linux-gnu % sh config.sub alpha-linux alpha-unknown-linux-gnu % sh config.sub hp9k700 hppa1.1-hp-hpux % sh config.sub sun4 sparc-sun-sunos4.1.1 % sh config.sub sun3 m68k-sun-sunos4.1.1 % sh config.sub i986v Invalid configuration `i986v': machine `i986v' not recognized |
config.sub is also distributed in the GDB source
directory (`gdb-7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) ', for version 7.4.1 for GNAT GPL 2012 (20120509) ).
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Here is a summary of the `configure' options and arguments that are most often useful for building GDB. `configure' also has several other options not listed here. See Info file `configure.info', node `What Configure Does', for a full explanation of `configure'.
configure [--help]
[--prefix=dir]
[--exec-prefix=dir]
[--srcdir=dirname]
[--norecursion] [--rm]
[--target=target]
host
|
You may introduce options with a single `-' rather than `--' if you prefer; but you may abbreviate option names if you use `--'.
--help
--prefix=dir
--exec-prefix=dir
--srcdir=dirname
make, or another
make that implements the VPATH feature.
--norecursion
--target=target
There is no convenient way to generate a list of all available targets.
host ...
There is no convenient way to generate a list of all available hosts.
There are many other options available as well, but they are generally needed for special purposes only.
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GDB can be configured to have a system-wide init file; this file will be read and executed at startup (see section What GDB does during startup).
Here is the corresponding configure option:
--with-system-gdbinit=file
If GDB has been configured with the option `--prefix=$prefix', it may be subject to relocation. Two possible cases:
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