QNX Neutrino Programmer's Guide [6.5.0 SP1] - QNX Software ...

© 2012, QNX Software Systems Limited Debugging
Debugging in a cross-development environment
The debugger can run on one platform to debug executables on another:
Communications
channel
Debugger
Debug
agent
Executable
Debugging in a cross-development environment.
In a cross-development environment, the host and the target systems must be
connected via some form of communications channel.
The two components, the debugger and the debug agent, perform different functions.
The debugger is responsible for presenting a user interface and for communicating
over some communications channel to the debug agent. The debug agent is
responsible for controlling (via the /proc filesystem) the process being debugged.
All debug information and source remains on the host system. This combination of a
small target agent and a full-featured host debugger allows for full symbolic
debugging, even in the memory-constrained environments of small targets.
In order to debug your programs with full source using the symbolic debugger, you’ll
need to tell the C compiler and linker to include symbolic information in the object
and executable files. For details, see the qcc docs in the Utilities Reference. Without
this symbolic information, the debugger can provide only assembly-language-level
debugging.
The GNU debugger (gdb)
Starting gdb
The GNU debugger is a command-line program that provides a very rich set of
options. You’ll find a tutorial-style doc called “Using GDB” as an appendix in this
manual.
You can invoke gdb by using the following variants, which correspond to your target
platform:
June 14, 2012 Chapter 1 • Compiling and Debugging 23