Re: running in the build directory

[Bruno Haible]

Jose E. Marchesi wrote:
> 
>     It would be good to support
>       $ ./run gdb poke
>     but this fails:
>     "/media/develdata/devel/POKE/poke/src/poke": not in executable format: 
> Dateiformat nicht erkannt
>     
>       $ ./libtool --mode=execute gdb poke
>     is the documented way to debug a program in the build dir. But this does 
> not
>     set the poke data variables.
>     
>     But
>       $ ./run ./libtool --mode=execute gdb poke
>     fails:
>     "/media/develdata/devel/POKE/poke/src/poke": not in executable format: 
> Dateiformat nicht erkannt
> 
> In HACKING we document:
> 
> Invoking GDB to debug an uninstalled poke
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> Since we are using libtool, ``$(builddir)/src/poke`` is a shell
> script.  In order to debug the uninstalled poke, you can do::
> 
>   $ libtool --mode=execute ./run gdb ./src/poke

Ah. Indeed both of

    $ ./run ./libtool --mode=execute gdb src/poke

    $ ./libtool --mode=execute ./run gdb src/poke

work. Notes:
- Here one has to mention 'src/poke', not 'poke'. Reason: The line
    PATH=$b/src:$PATH
  has no effect on how gdb locates the executable.
- I would recommend './libtool' instead of 'libtool'. Reason: 'libtool'
  refers to a program in PATH, that may have been created by a different
  version of libtool or for a different compiler.
- You can write 'src/poke' instead of './src/poke', since relative program
  names that contain a slash are always relative to the current directory,
  not to a member of $PATH.

Bruno