configure script that automates the process
of preparing GDB for installation; you can then use 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 5.2.1 distribution is in the
gdb-5.2.1 directory. That directory contains:
gdb-5.2.1/configure (and supporting files)
gdb-5.2.1/gdb
gdb-5.2.1/bfd
gdb-5.2.1/include
gdb-5.2.1/libiberty
-liberty free software library
gdb-5.2.1/opcodes
gdb-5.2.1/readline
gdb-5.2.1/glob
gdb-5.2.1/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-5.2.1 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-5.2.1
./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-5.2.1 source directory for version 5.2.1, 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 5.2.1, type the following to configure only
the bfd subdirectory:
cd gdb-5.2.1/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.