Re: GDB for fortran: access modules

[Steven Bosscher <stevenb dot gcc at gmail dot com>]

On Wednesday 06 December 2006 17:58, nicolas wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am currently using GDB on Suse 10.1. I am programming in Fortran. I
> can't access variables defined in modules. Is it possible? I have also a
> GDB Fortran project, is it still going on?
> (the intel debugger uses the following syntax: `module`variable_name). I
> have also tried to use the intel debugger in gdb mode (idb -gdb) but
> some syntax are different, and i can't use it inside kdevelop.

Sadly, GDB does *not* support Fortran 90/95 rigth now.

The  GDB Fortran project was done by then-Caldera-now-SCO, yes,
*that* SCO.  So, well, ehm, you know, ehh... ;-)  That work was
never really finished, and never contributed.  The patches from
that project do not apply to the current GDB sources.

Having said that, the Caldera patch applies to GDB 5.3 and it
produces a debugger that works quite nicely for Intel Fortran
compilers.  The patched GDB does not work with gfortran or g95,
neither compiler existed at the time.

I have some plans, and even a few patches, to improve the debug
information produced by gfortran, and to make gdb understand
that additional information.  Because ifort and gfortran are
not compatible, whatever I come up with (and whenever, I'm not
making any promisses here ;-) will not work for ifort.  I don't
plan to add that support, but it should not be very difficult
to make such patches work with both compilers and possibly some
other compilers as well.

Until then, GDB won't be very usable for you, I'm afraid :-(

Gr.
Steven