how can I use eclipse to debug a libtool generated script?

Question

I have a large c++ project built with libtool. the problem is that eclipse will not run a libtool generated script, and I get a "Program is not a recognized executable." error message. how can I use eclipse debugger? I'm currently using kdevelop3 as an editor and debugging with insight.. which is horrible.

I could perhaps run the actual executable, thats in the ./libs of the project directory, but then I would have to manually set LD_LIBRARY_PATH and stuff like that... there must be a better way to so this.

any help would be appreciated!

Answer 1

Running a script instead of an executable is still unsupported in Eclipse, see this bug. Until the feature is introduced, you cannot debug a libtool-enabled project under Eclipse unless you keep something like a

    path/to/configure --disable-shared

separate configuration, thus relying on static linking only for debugging purposes.

To do that, you

1. Open Project|Properties from the top menu

2. Select Autotools|Configure Settings from the left menu of the window

3. (Optionally) Create a new build configuration with a dedicated C/C++ Build|Builder Settings|Build location

4. Under configure|Advanced, fill the "Additional command-line options" with --disable-shared

Answer 2

You can work around it by running the actual executable instead of the libtool script. The executable will generally be found in .libs/. So in your debug configuration on the main tab set the value of C/C++ Application to something like .libs/my_application. Then all you'll need to do us update LD_LIBRARY_PATH within your debug configuration.

Go to the environment tab of your debug configuration and make a new environment variable called LD_LIBRARY_PATH. You'll want to append the .libs directory to the path. So the value should look like this: ${project_loc}/.libs:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH assuming your .libs folder is right inside of the project directory.

Answer 3

I think one could write a little wrapper program to interpose an exec of 'sh libtool --mode execute' to run gdb. Call it 'gdb-libtool' and invoke that instead of gdb.

I am developing under both Windows and Linux so it's something I need for myself.

There are a few tricky bits, like getting the paths right at libtool and gdb invocation.. off to take a swat at that.

Cheers, Jerry.

Answer 4

For the first point, you can disable intermediate libtool script by adding -no-install to LDFLAGS in your Makefile.am OR you can just run make install and debug from installed binary.

For the second point, you'll have to set and export your LD_LIBRARY_PATH before launching eclipse.

Answer 5

You need to convince eclipse to start gdb like this:

$ libtool --mode=execute gdb <your-program>

See https://www.gnu.org/s/libtool/manual/html_node/Debugging-executables.html