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.
(8)
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 5.1.1 distribution is in the `gdb-5.1.1' directory. That directory contains:
gdb-5.1.1/configure (and supporting files)
gdb-5.1.1/gdb
gdb-5.1.1/bfd
gdb-5.1.1/include
gdb-5.1.1/libiberty
gdb-5.1.1/opcodes
gdb-5.1.1/readline
gdb-5.1.1/glob
gdb-5.1.1/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-5.1.1' 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-5.1.1 ./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-5.1.1' source directory for version 5.1.1, configure
creates configuration files for every directory level underneath (unless
you tell it not to, with the `--norecursion' option).
You can run the configure
script from any of the
subordinate directories in the GDB distribution if you only want to
configure that subdirectory, but be sure to specify a path to it.
For example, with version 5.1.1, type the following to configure only
the bfd
subdirectory:
cd gdb-5.1.1/bfd ../configure host
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.
Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.