How to set a breakpoint in *.a archive

[Clark L. Coleman]

I am trying to debug an executable in directory1.  Over in directory2,
there is a library file foo.a that was linked into the executable.  It
was compiled with the -g compiler flag, among others.

When I use gdb within directory two:

gdb directory1/executablename
> directory $cwd
$cwd:$cdir

I still cannot set a breakpoint at some location within the archive:

> b foo.c:177
No source file named foo.c.

So, how do I set a breakpoint within foo.c?

This is gdb on Red Hat Linux:

$ gdb -v
GNU gdb Red Hat Linux (5.1.90CVS-5)
Copyright 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB.  Type "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "i386-redhat-linux".


Thanks for any help.

Clark Coleman