Table of Contents

1. Requirements
2. Overall Structure

2.1 The Symbol Side
2.2 The Target Side
2.3 Configurations

3. Algorithms

3.1 Frames
3.2 Breakpoint Handling
3.3 Single Stepping
3.4 Signal Handling
3.5 Thread Handling
3.6 Inferior Function Calls
3.7 Longjmp Support
3.8 Watchpoints

3.8.1 x86 Watchpoints

4. User Interface

4.1 Command Interpreter
4.2 UI-Independent Output--the ui_out Functions

4.2.1 Overview and Terminology
4.2.2 General Conventions
4.2.3 Table, Tuple and List Functions
4.2.4 Item Output Functions
4.2.5 Utility Output Functions
4.2.6 Examples of Use of ui_out functions

4.3 Console Printing
4.4 TUI

5. libgdb

5.1 libgdb 1.0
5.2 libgdb 2.0
5.3 The libgdb Model
5.4 CLI support
5.5 libgdb components

6. Symbol Handling

6.1 Symbol Reading
6.2 Partial Symbol Tables
6.3 Types

Fundamental Types (e.g., FT_VOID, FT_BOOLEAN).
Type Codes (e.g., TYPE_CODE_PTR, TYPE_CODE_ARRAY).
Builtin Types (e.g., builtin_type_void, builtin_type_char).

6.4 Object File Formats

6.4.1 a.out
6.4.2 COFF
6.4.3 ECOFF
6.4.4 XCOFF
6.4.5 PE
6.4.6 ELF
6.4.7 SOM
6.4.8 Other File Formats

6.5 Debugging File Formats

6.5.1 stabs
6.5.2 COFF
6.5.3 Mips debug (Third Eye)
6.5.4 DWARF 1
6.5.5 DWARF 2
6.5.6 SOM

6.6 Adding a New Symbol Reader to GDB

7. Language Support

7.1 Adding a Source Language to GDB

8. Host Definition

8.1 Adding a New Host
8.2 Host Conditionals

9. Target Architecture Definition

9.1 Operating System ABI Variant Handling
9.2 Registers and Memory
9.3 Pointers Are Not Always Addresses
9.4 Address Classes
9.5 Raw and Virtual Register Representations
9.6 Using Different Register and Memory Data Representations
9.7 Frame Interpretation
9.8 Inferior Call Setup
9.9 Compiler Characteristics
9.10 Target Conditionals
9.11 Adding a New Target
9.12 Converting an existing Target Architecture to Multi-arch

9.12.1 Preparation
9.12.2 Add the multi-arch initialization code
9.12.3 Update multi-arch incompatible mechanisms
9.12.4 Prepare for multi-arch level to one
9.12.5 Set multi-arch level one
9.12.6 Convert remaining macros
9.12.7 Set multi-arch level to two
9.12.8 Delete the TM file

10. Target Vector Definition

10.1 File Targets
10.2 Standard Protocol and Remote Stubs
10.3 ROM Monitor Interface
10.4 Custom Protocols
10.5 Transport Layer
10.6 Builtin Simulator

11. Native Debugging

11.1 Native core file Support
11.2 ptrace
11.3 /proc
11.4 win32
11.5 shared libraries
11.6 Native Conditionals

12. Support Libraries

12.1 BFD
12.2 opcodes
12.3 readline
12.4 mmalloc
12.5 libiberty
12.6 gnu-regex
12.7 include

13. Coding

13.1 Cleanups
13.2 Per-architecture module data
13.3 Wrapping Output Lines
13.4 GDB Coding Standards

13.4.1 ISO C
13.4.2 Memory Management
13.4.3 Compiler Warnings
13.4.4 Formatting
13.4.5 Comments
13.4.6 C Usage
13.4.7 Function Prototypes
13.4.8 Internal Error Recovery
13.4.9 File Names
13.4.10 Include Files
13.4.11 Clean Design and Portable Implementation

14. Porting GDB

14.1 Configuring GDB for Release

15. Releasing GDB

15.1 Versions and Branches

15.1.1 Version Identifiers
15.1.2 Branches

15.2 Branch Commit Policy
15.3 Obsoleting code
15.4 Before the Branch

15.4.1 Review the bug data base
15.4.2 Check all cross targets build

15.5 Cut the Branch
15.6 Stabilize the branch
15.7 Create a Release

15.7.1 Create a release candidate
15.7.2 Sanity check the tar ball
15.7.3 Make a release candidate available
15.7.4 Make a formal release available
15.7.5 Cleanup

15.8 Post release

16. Testsuite

16.1 Using the Testsuite
16.2 Testsuite Organization
16.3 Writing Tests

17. Hints

17.1 Getting Started
17.2 Debugging GDB with itself
17.3 Submitting Patches
17.4 Obsolete Conditionals

A. GNU Free Documentation License

ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

Index