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Options for Debugging Your Program or GNU CC
============================================

   GNU CC has various special options that are used for debugging
either your program or GCC:

`-g'
     Produce debugging information in the operating system's native
     format (stabs, COFF, XCOFF, or DWARF).  GDB can work with this
     debugging information.

     On most systems that use stabs format, `-g' enables use of extra
     debugging information that only GDB can use; this extra information
     makes debugging work better in GDB but will probably make other
     debuggers crash or refuse to read the program.  If you want to
     control for certain whether to generate the extra information, use
     `-gstabs+', `-gstabs', `-gxcoff+', `-gxcoff', `-gdwarf+', or
     `-gdwarf' (see below).

     Unlike most other C compilers, GNU CC allows you to use `-g' with
     `-O'.  The shortcuts taken by optimized code may occasionally
     produce surprising results: some variables you declared may not
     exist at all; flow of control may briefly move where you did not
     expect it; some statements may not be executed because they
     compute constant results or their values were already at hand;
     some statements may execute in different places because they were
     moved out of loops.

     Nevertheless it proves possible to debug optimized output.  This
     makes it reasonable to use the optimizer for programs that might
     have bugs.

     The following options are useful when GNU CC is generated with the
     capability for more than one debugging format.

`-ggdb'
     Produce debugging information in the native format (if that is
     supported), including GDB extensions if at all possible.

`-gstabs'
     Produce debugging information in stabs format (if that is
     supported), without GDB extensions.  This is the format used by
     DBX on most BSD systems.  On MIPS, Alpha and System V Release 4
     systems this option produces stabs debugging output which is not
     understood by DBX or SDB.  On System V Release 4 systems this
     option requires the GNU assembler.

`-gstabs+'
     Produce debugging information in stabs format (if that is
     supported), using GNU extensions understood only by the GNU
     debugger (GDB).  The use of these extensions is likely to make
     other debuggers crash or refuse to read the program.

`-gcoff'
     Produce debugging information in COFF format (if that is
     supported).  This is the format used by SDB on most System V
     systems prior to System V Release 4.

`-gxcoff'
     Produce debugging information in XCOFF format (if that is
     supported).  This is the format used by the DBX debugger on IBM
     RS/6000 systems.

`-gxcoff+'
     Produce debugging information in XCOFF format (if that is
     supported), using GNU extensions understood only by the GNU
     debugger (GDB).  The use of these extensions is likely to make
     other debuggers crash or refuse to read the program, and may cause
     assemblers other than the GNU assembler (GAS) to fail with an
     error.

`-gdwarf'
     Produce debugging information in DWARF format (if that is
     supported).  This is the format used by SDB on most System V
     Release 4 systems.

`-gdwarf+'
     Produce debugging information in DWARF format (if that is
     supported), using GNU extensions understood only by the GNU
     debugger (GDB).  The use of these extensions is likely to make
     other debuggers crash or refuse to read the program.

`-gLEVEL'
`-ggdbLEVEL'
`-gstabsLEVEL'
`-gcoffLEVEL'
`-gxcoffLEVEL'
`-gdwarfLEVEL'
     Request debugging information and also use LEVEL to specify how
     much information.  The default level is 2.

     Level 1 produces minimal information, enough for making backtraces
     in parts of the program that you don't plan to debug.  This
     includes descriptions of functions and external variables, but no
     information about local variables and no line numbers.

     Level 3 includes extra information, such as all the macro
     definitions present in the program.  Some debuggers support macro
     expansion when you use `-g3'.

`-p'
     Generate extra code to write profile information suitable for the
     analysis program `prof'.  You must use this option when compiling
     the source files you want data about, and you must also use it when
     linking.

`-pg'
     Generate extra code to write profile information suitable for the
     analysis program `gprof'.  You must use this option when compiling
     the source files you want data about, and you must also use it when
     linking.

`-a'
     Generate extra code to write profile information for basic blocks,
     which will record the number of times each basic block is
     executed, the basic block start address, and the function name
     containing the basic block.  If `-g' is used, the line number and
     filename of the start of the basic block will also be recorded.
     If not overridden by the machine description, the default action is
     to append to the text file `bb.out'.

     This data could be analyzed by a program like `tcov'.  Note,
     however, that the format of the data is not what `tcov' expects.
     Eventually GNU `gprof' should be extended to process this data.

`-dLETTERS'
     Says to make debugging dumps during compilation at times specified
     by LETTERS.  This is used for debugging the compiler.  The file
     names for most of the dumps are made by appending a word to the
     source file name (e.g.  `foo.c.rtl' or `foo.c.jump').  Here are the
     possible letters for use in LETTERS, and their meanings:

    `M'
          Dump all macro definitions, at the end of preprocessing, and
          write no output.

    `N'
          Dump all macro names, at the end of preprocessing.

    `D'
          Dump all macro definitions, at the end of preprocessing, in
          addition to normal output.

    `y'
          Dump debugging information during parsing, to standard error.

    `r'
          Dump after RTL generation, to `FILE.rtl'.

    `x'
          Just generate RTL for a function instead of compiling it.
          Usually used with `r'.

    `j'
          Dump after first jump optimization, to `FILE.jump'.

    `s'
          Dump after CSE (including the jump optimization that sometimes
          follows CSE), to `FILE.cse'.

    `L'
          Dump after loop optimization, to `FILE.loop'.

    `t'
          Dump after the second CSE pass (including the jump
          optimization that sometimes follows CSE), to `FILE.cse2'.

    `f'
          Dump after flow analysis, to `FILE.flow'.

    `c'
          Dump after instruction combination, to the file
          `FILE.combine'.

    `S'
          Dump after the first instruction scheduling pass, to
          `FILE.sched'.

    `l'
          Dump after local register allocation, to `FILE.lreg'.

    `g'
          Dump after global register allocation, to `FILE.greg'.

    `R'
          Dump after the second instruction scheduling pass, to
          `FILE.sched2'.

    `J'
          Dump after last jump optimization, to `FILE.jump2'.

    `d'
          Dump after delayed branch scheduling, to `FILE.dbr'.

    `k'
          Dump after conversion from registers to stack, to
          `FILE.stack'.

    `a'
          Produce all the dumps listed above.

    `m'
          Print statistics on memory usage, at the end of the run, to
          standard error.

    `p'
          Annotate the assembler output with a comment indicating which
          pattern and alternative was used.

`-fpretend-float'
     When running a cross-compiler, pretend that the target machine
     uses the same floating point format as the host machine.  This
     causes incorrect output of the actual floating constants, but the
     actual instruction sequence will probably be the same as GNU CC
     would make when running on the target machine.

`-save-temps'
     Store the usual "temporary" intermediate files permanently; place
     them in the current directory and name them based on the source
     file.  Thus, compiling `foo.c' with `-c -save-temps' would produce
     files `foo.i' and `foo.s', as well as `foo.o'.

`-print-file-name=LIBRARY'
     Print the full absolute name of the library file LIBRARY that
     would be used when linking--and don't do anything else.  With this
     option, GNU CC does not compile or link anything; it just prints
     the file name.

`-print-prog-name=PROGRAM'
     Like `-print-file-name', but searches for a program such as `cpp'.

`-print-libgcc-file-name'
     Same as `-print-file-name=libgcc.a'.

     This is useful when you use `-nostdlib' or `-nodefaultlibs' but
     you do want to link with `libgcc.a'.  You can do

          gcc -nostdlib FILES... `gcc -print-libgcc-file-name`

`-print-search-dirs'
     Print the name of the configured installation directory and a list
     of program and library directories gcc will search--and don't do
     anything else.

     This is useful when gcc prints the error message `installation
     problem, cannot exec cpp: No such file or directory'.  To resolve
     this you either need to put `cpp' and the other compiler
     components where gcc expects to find them, or you can set the
     environment variable `GCC_EXEC_PREFIX' to the directory where you
     installed them.  Don't forget the trailing '/'.  *Note Environment
     Variables::.