Compiling gdb for remote debugging

Question

I'm trying to remote debug an application running on arm9

So far I've been able to cross compile and execute gdbserver on my device.

get gdb (7.2) sources and extract them
./configure --target=arm-none-linux-gnueabi --with-expat=/usr/local/lib/
make
cd gdb/gdbserver
./configure --host=arm-none-linux-gnueabi
make
tftp gdbserver to my device
run and connect via gdb to the device

gdbserver "seems" to start correctly and attach itself to my helloworld application

When I try to gdb to the remote server, I get
"warning: Can not parse XML target description; XML support was disabled at compile time"

Obviously, the compilation didn't take into account expat. I'm really unsure about how to specify the expat library path to the configuration script.

Offirmo · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-14 16:25:35Z

21

(old question but I stumbled into it via googling the same problem)

The problem is the missing "expat" lib. This is hard to guess because :

this lib is optional for compiling gdb
the "expat" name has no clear connection to XML...

So install "expat-dev" (with your packet manager or anything) and then relaunch ./configure. Be careful to install the "dev" version since we are doing recompilation and need the include files.

To be extra-sure, it's possible to add the "--with-expat" to the ./configure call so that it will stop with an error if expat is not found.

edited Dec 14, 2011 at 16:25

answered Sep 9, 2011 at 8:00

Offirmo

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2 Comments

brad-tot Over a year ago

I tried "--with-expat" prior to installing expat-dev and the configure script did not fail. The package install I used was "sudo apt-get install libexpat1-dev". I omitted --with-expat, but otherwise a spot-on answer. Thanks for the help!

Martin Löper Over a year ago

Yeah that is really confusing. Also realised that --with-expat simply behaves like if it was omitted when it cannot find the library.

Eric · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-14 20:04:33Z

1

Somehow it worked anyway

Also, create a file ~/.gdbinit with

file /home/username/path/to/exec/exec_name
set sysroot /path/to/libraries/running/on/target/device
target remote HOST:PORT
b main

answered Apr 14, 2011 at 20:04

Eric

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