B.1 Requirements for Building gdb
Building gdb requires various tools and packages to be available.
Other packages will be used only if they are found.
Tools/Packages Necessary for Building gdb
- ISO C90 compiler
- gdb is written in ISO C90. It should be buildable with any
working C90 compiler, e.g. GCC.
Tools/Packages Optional for Building gdb
- Expat
- gdb can use the Expat XML parsing library. This library may be
included with your operating system distribution; if it is not, you
can get the latest version from http://expat.sourceforge.net.
The configure script will search for this library in several
standard locations; if it is installed in an unusual path, you can
use the --with-libexpat-prefix option to specify its location.
Expat is used for:
- zlib
- gdb will use the ‘zlib’ library, if available, to read
compressed debug sections. Some linkers, such as GNU gold, are capable
of producing binaries with compressed debug sections. If gdb
is compiled with ‘zlib’, it will be able to read the debug
information in such binaries.
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.