debugging a C code on Linux OS

[ilans11il]

Hi,

I have a code that I'd like to debugg it.

Question
1 - What is the correct command line to use the debugger ?
2 - Do I need to install additional software for the debugger ?
if yes what it's name?

• I use ububtu 12.4
• compiling command: gcc abc.c -lpthread -o abc

[spaghetticode]

gdb is kind of the standard debugger under linux operating systems, just like gcc is kind of the standard compiler. If not already installed, install it via

sudo apt-get install gdb

For reference on usage see the manpage, command:

man gdb

[rags_to_riches]

Compile your code like this to make debugging actually worthwhile (that is, enabling debug symbols and generating warnings, which you should fix first):

gcc -ggdb3 -Wall -pedantic -lpthread -o abc abc.c

-ggdb3 enables the debug symbols, the other settings are for warning generation. Depending on how you wrote your code you may need to add --std=c99 or --std=c11 to the options.

[stabu]

The first question doesn't seem to be answered yet, but - as mentioned - gdb is the tool to use and the compilation needs to have debugging symbols options enabled.

The command is simply "gdb <executable>" in other words, you perform gdb on the compiled version of the code. gdb will know which c source file it came from and present you with the text. Once your in gdb typing "run" will run the code within the debugger, but you will need to set a breakpoint if you want it to stop somewhere within the code.

gdb can be somewhat stark, if you're a vim user "cgdb" is a good, more visual way to handle it. Emacs on its own is already good with gdb .. Gdb is very powerful, but learnign it is a very good investment.