How to make GDB work with external programs

Question

I am very interested in learning more about the specifics of debugging, and I am looking into making a very simple GUI for debugging with GDB.

I understand in general how debuggers work, but I am having trouble of how an IDE interacts with an external debugger like GDB.

I am sure I could call commands to setup breakpoints and such in the debugger, but I am unsure of how an IDE would get the information back like, oh the breakpoint you set has been hit or variable values and such. Is there good information of using GDB within another program, I tried searching google, but all results I get are about how to debug another program using GDB or setting it up in a IDE already developed.

does it involve hooking into GDB? or does GDB have a library?

Thanks.

Answer 1

does it involve hooking into GDB? or does GDB have a library?

No and no.

GDB has a machine interface, intended for interfacing between and IDE and GDB.