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You can always ask GDB itself for information on its commands,
using the command help
.
help
h
You can use help
(abbreviated h
) with no arguments to
display a short list of named classes of commands:
(gdb) help List of classes of commands: aliases -- User-defined aliases of other commands breakpoints -- Making program stop at certain points data -- Examining data files -- Specifying and examining files internals -- Maintenance commands obscure -- Obscure features running -- Running the program stack -- Examining the stack status -- Status inquiries support -- Support facilities tracepoints -- Tracing of program execution without stopping the program user-defined -- User-defined commands Type "help" followed by a class name for a list of commands in that class. Type "help" followed by command name for full documentation. Command name abbreviations are allowed if unambiguous. (gdb)
help class
Using one of the general help classes as an argument, you can get a
list of the individual commands in that class. If a command has
aliases, the aliases are given after the command name, separated by
commas. If an alias has default arguments, the full definition of
the alias is given after the first line.
For example, here is the help display for the class status
:
(gdb) help status Status inquiries. List of commands: info, inf, i -- Generic command for showing things about the program being debugged info address, iamain -- Describe where symbol SYM is stored. alias iamain = info address main info all-registers -- List of all registers and their contents, for selected stack frame. ... show, info set -- Generic command for showing things about the debugger Type "help" followed by command name for full documentation. Command name abbreviations are allowed if unambiguous. (gdb)
help command
With a command name as help
argument, GDB displays a
short paragraph on how to use that command. If that command has
one or more aliases, GDB will display a first line with
the command name and all its aliases separated by commas.
This first line will be followed by the full definition of all aliases
having default arguments.
When asking the help for an alias, the documentation for the aliased
command is shown.
A user-defined alias can optionally be documented using the
document
command (see document). GDB then
considers this alias as different from the aliased command: this alias
is not listed in the aliased command help output, and asking help for
this alias will show the documentation provided for the alias instead of
the documentation of the aliased command.
apropos [-v] regexp
The apropos
command searches through all of the GDB
commands and aliases, and their documentation, for the regular expression specified in
args. It prints out all matches found. The optional flag ‘-v’,
which stands for ‘verbose’, indicates to output the full documentation
of the matching commands and highlight the parts of the documentation
matching regexp. For example:
apropos alias
results in:
alias -- Define a new command that is an alias of an existing command aliases -- User-defined aliases of other commands
while
apropos -v cut.*thread apply
results in the below output, where ‘cut for 'thread apply’ is highlighted if styling is enabled.
taas -- Apply a command to all threads (ignoring errors and empty output). Usage: taas COMMAND shortcut for 'thread apply all -s COMMAND' tfaas -- Apply a command to all frames of all threads (ignoring errors and empty output). Usage: tfaas COMMAND shortcut for 'thread apply all -s frame apply all -s COMMAND'
complete args
The complete args
command lists all the possible completions
for the beginning of a command. Use args to specify the beginning of the
command you want completed. For example:
complete i
results in:
if ignore info inspect
This is intended for use by GNU Emacs.
In addition to help
, you can use the GDB commands info
and show
to inquire about the state of your program, or the state
of GDB itself. Each command supports many topics of inquiry; this
manual introduces each of them in the appropriate context. The listings
under info
and under show
in the Command, Variable, and
Function Index point to all the sub-commands. See Command and Variable Index.
info
This command (abbreviated i
) is for describing the state of your
program. For example, you can show the arguments passed to a function
with info args
, list the registers currently in use with info
registers
, or list the breakpoints you have set with info breakpoints
.
You can get a complete list of the info
sub-commands with
help info
.
set
You can assign the result of an expression to an environment variable with
set
. For example, you can set the GDB prompt to a $-sign with
set prompt $
.
show
In contrast to info
, show
is for describing the state of
GDB itself.
You can change most of the things you can show
, by using the
related command set
; for example, you can control what number
system is used for displays with set radix
, or simply inquire
which is currently in use with show radix
.
To display all the settable parameters and their current
values, you can use show
with no arguments; you may also use
info set
. Both commands produce the same display.
Here are several miscellaneous show
subcommands, all of which are
exceptional in lacking corresponding set
commands:
show version
Show what version of GDB is running. You should include this information in GDB bug-reports. If multiple versions of GDB are in use at your site, you may need to determine which version of GDB you are running; as GDB evolves, new commands are introduced, and old ones may wither away. Also, many system vendors ship variant versions of GDB, and there are variant versions of GDB in GNU/Linux distributions as well. The version number is the same as the one announced when you start GDB.
show copying
info copying
Display information about permission for copying GDB.
show warranty
info warranty
Display the GNU “NO WARRANTY” statement, or a warranty, if your version of GDB comes with one.
show configuration
Display detailed information about the way GDB was configured
when it was built. This displays the optional arguments passed to the
configure script and also configuration parameters detected
automatically by configure
. When reporting a GDB
bug (see GDB Bugs), it is important to include this information in
your report.
Previous: Command Options, Up: Commands [Contents][Index]