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<h3 class="section">C.5 <samp><span class="file">configure</span></samp> Options</h3>

<p>Here is a summary of the <samp><span class="file">configure</span></samp> options and arguments that
are most often useful for building <span class="sc">gdb</span>.  <samp><span class="file">configure</span></samp>
also has several other options not listed here.  see <a href="../autoconf.info/Running-configure-scripts.html#Running-configure-scripts">Running configure scripts</a>, for a full
explanation of <samp><span class="file">configure</span></samp>.

<pre class="smallexample">     configure <span class="roman">[</span>--help<span class="roman">]</span>
               <span class="roman">[</span>--prefix=<var>dir</var><span class="roman">]</span>
               <span class="roman">[</span>--exec-prefix=<var>dir</var><span class="roman">]</span>
               <span class="roman">[</span>--srcdir=<var>dirname</var><span class="roman">]</span>
               <span class="roman">[</span>--target=<var>target</var><span class="roman">]</span>
</pre>
   <p class="noindent">You may introduce options with a single &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">-</span></samp>&rsquo; rather than
&lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">--</span></samp>&rsquo; if you prefer; but you may abbreviate option names if you use
&lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">--</span></samp>&rsquo;.

     <dl>
<dt><code>--help</code><dd>Display a quick summary of how to invoke <samp><span class="file">configure</span></samp>.

     <br><dt><code>--prefix=</code><var>dir</var><dd>Configure the source to install programs and files under directory
<samp><var>dir</var></samp>.

     <br><dt><code>--exec-prefix=</code><var>dir</var><dd>Configure the source to install programs under directory
<samp><var>dir</var></samp>.

     <!-- avoid splitting the warning from the explanation: -->
     <br><dt><code>--srcdir=</code><var>dirname</var><dd>Use this option to make configurations in directories separate from the
<span class="sc">gdb</span> source directories.  Among other things, you can use this to
build (or maintain) several configurations simultaneously, in separate
directories.  <samp><span class="file">configure</span></samp> writes configuration-specific files in
the current directory, but arranges for them to use the source in the
directory <var>dirname</var>.  <samp><span class="file">configure</span></samp> creates directories under
the working directory in parallel to the source directories below
<var>dirname</var>.

     <br><dt><code>--target=</code><var>target</var><dd>Configure <span class="sc">gdb</span> for cross-debugging programs running on the specified
<var>target</var>.  Without this option, <span class="sc">gdb</span> is configured to debug
programs that run on the same machine (<var>host</var>) as <span class="sc">gdb</span> itself.

     <p>There is no convenient way to generate a list of all available
targets.  Also see the <code>--enable-targets</code> option, below. 
</dl>

   <p>There are many other options that are specific to <span class="sc">gdb</span>.  This
lists just the most common ones; there are some very specialized
options not described here.

     <dl>
<dt><code>--enable-targets=</code><span class="roman">[</span><var>target</var><span class="roman">]</span><code>...</code><dt><code>--enable-targets=all</code><dd>Configure <span class="sc">gdb</span> for cross-debugging programs running on the
specified list of targets.  The special value &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">all</span></samp>&rsquo; configures
<span class="sc">gdb</span> for debugging programs running on any target it supports.

     <br><dt><code>--with-gdb-datadir=</code><var>path</var><dd>Set the <span class="sc">gdb</span>-specific data directory.  <span class="sc">gdb</span> will look
here for certain supporting files or scripts.  This defaults to the
<samp><span class="file">gdb</span></samp> subdirectory of &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">datadi</span></samp>&rsquo; (which can be set using
<code>--datadir</code>).

     <br><dt><code>--with-relocated-sources=</code><var>dir</var><dd>Sets up the default source path substitution rule so that directory
names recorded in debug information will be automatically adjusted for
any directory under <var>dir</var>.  <var>dir</var> should be a subdirectory of
<span class="sc">gdb</span>'s configured prefix, the one mentioned in the
<code>--prefix</code> or <code>--exec-prefix</code> options to configure.  This
option is useful if GDB is supposed to be moved to a different place
after it is built.

     <br><dt><code>--enable-64-bit-bfd</code><dd>Enable 64-bit support in BFD on 32-bit hosts.

     <br><dt><code>--disable-gdbmi</code><dd>Build <span class="sc">gdb</span> without the GDB/MI machine interface
(see <a href="GDB_002fMI.html#GDB_002fMI">GDB/MI</a>).

     <br><dt><code>--enable-tui</code><dd>Build <span class="sc">gdb</span> with the text-mode full-screen user interface
(TUI).  Requires a curses library (ncurses and cursesX are also
supported).

     <br><dt><code>--with-curses</code><dd>Use the curses library instead of the termcap library, for text-mode
terminal operations.

     <br><dt><code>--with-libunwind-ia64</code><dd>Use the libunwind library for unwinding function call stack on ia64
target platforms.  See http://www.nongnu.org/libunwind/index.html for
details.

     <br><dt><code>--with-system-readline</code><dd>Use the readline library installed on the host, rather than the
library supplied as part of <span class="sc">gdb</span>.

     <br><dt><code>--with-system-zlib</code><dd>Use the zlib library installed on the host, rather than the library
supplied as part of <span class="sc">gdb</span>.

     <br><dt><code>--with-expat</code><dd>Build <span class="sc">gdb</span> with Expat, a library for XML parsing.  (Done by
default if libexpat is installed and found at configure time.)  This
library is used to read XML files supplied with <span class="sc">gdb</span>.  If it
is unavailable, some features, such as remote protocol memory maps,
target descriptions, and shared library lists, that are based on XML
files, will not be available in <span class="sc">gdb</span>.  If your host does not
have libexpat installed, you can get the latest version from
`http://expat.sourceforge.net'.

     <br><dt><code>--with-libiconv-prefix</code><span class="roman">[</span><code>=</code><var>dir</var><span class="roman">]</span><dd>
Build <span class="sc">gdb</span> with GNU libiconv, a character set encoding
conversion library.  This is not done by default, as on GNU systems
the <code>iconv</code> that is built in to the C library is sufficient.  If
your host does not have a working <code>iconv</code>, you can get the latest
version of GNU iconv from `https://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/'.

     <p><span class="sc">gdb</span>'s build system also supports building GNU libiconv as
part of the overall build.   See <a href="Requirements.html#Requirements">Requirements</a>.

     <br><dt><code>--with-lzma</code><dd>Build <span class="sc">gdb</span> with LZMA, a compression library.  (Done by default
if liblzma is installed and found at configure time.)  LZMA is used by
<span class="sc">gdb</span>'s "mini debuginfo" feature, which is only useful on
platforms using the ELF object file format.  If your host does not
have liblzma installed, you can get the latest version from
`https://tukaani.org/xz/'.

     <br><dt><code>--with-mpfr</code><dd>Build <span class="sc">gdb</span> with GNU MPFR, a library for multiple-precision
floating-point computation with correct rounding.  (Done by default if
GNU MPFR is installed and found at configure time.)  This library is
used to emulate target floating-point arithmetic during expression
evaluation when the target uses different floating-point formats than
the host.  If GNU MPFR is not available, <span class="sc">gdb</span> will fall back
to using host floating-point arithmetic.  If your host does not have
GNU MPFR installed, you can get the latest version from
`http://www.mpfr.org'.

     <br><dt><code>--with-python</code><span class="roman">[</span><code>=</code><var>python</var><span class="roman">]</span><dd>Build <span class="sc">gdb</span> with Python scripting support.  (Done by default if
libpython is present and found at configure time.)  Python makes
<span class="sc">gdb</span> scripting much more powerful than the restricted CLI
scripting language.  If your host does not have Python installed, you
can find it on `http://www.python.org/download/'.  The oldest version
of Python supported by GDB is 2.6.  The optional argument <var>python</var>
is used to find the Python headers and libraries.  It can be either
the name of a Python executable, or the name of the directory in which
Python is installed.

     <br><dt><code>--with-guile[=GUILE]'</code><dd>Build <span class="sc">gdb</span> with GNU Guile scripting support.  (Done by default
if libguile is present and found at configure time.)  If your host
does not have Guile installed, you can find it at
`https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/'.  The optional argument GUILE
can be a version number, which will cause <code>configure</code> to try to
use that version of Guile; or the file name of a <code>pkg-config</code>
executable, which will be queried to find the information needed to
compile and link against Guile.

     <br><dt><code>--without-included-regex</code><dd>Don't use the regex library included with <span class="sc">gdb</span> (as part of the
libiberty library).  This is the default on hosts with version 2 of
the GNU C library.

     <br><dt><code>--with-sysroot=</code><var>dir</var><dd>Use <var>dir</var> as the default system root directory for libraries whose
file names begin with <samp><span class="file">/lib</span></samp>' or <samp><span class="file">/usr/lib'</span></samp>.  (The value of
<var>dir</var> can be modified at run time by using the <samp><span class="command">set
sysroot</span></samp> command.)  If <var>dir</var> is under the <span class="sc">gdb</span> configured
prefix (set with <code>--prefix</code> or <code>--exec-prefix options</code>, the
default system root will be automatically adjusted if and when
<span class="sc">gdb</span> is moved to a different location.

     <br><dt><code>--with-system-gdbinit=</code><var>file</var><dd>Configure <span class="sc">gdb</span> to automatically load a system-wide init file. 
<var>file</var> should be an absolute file name.  If <var>file</var> is in a
directory under the configured prefix, and <span class="sc">gdb</span> is moved to
another location after being built, the location of the system-wide
init file will be adjusted accordingly.

     <br><dt><code>--enable-build-warnings</code><dd>When building the <span class="sc">gdb</span> sources, ask the compiler to warn about
any code which looks even vaguely suspicious.  It passes many
different warning flags, depending on the exact version of the
compiler you are using.

     <br><dt><code>--enable-werror</code><dd>Treat compiler warnings as werrors.  It adds the <code>-Werror</code> flag
to the compiler, which will fail the compilation if the compiler
outputs any warning messages.

     <br><dt><code>--enable-ubsan</code><dd>Enable the GCC undefined behavior sanitizer.  This is disabled by
default, but passing <code>--enable-ubsan=yes</code> or
<code>--enable-ubsan=auto</code> to <code>configure</code> will enable it.  The
undefined behavior sanitizer checks for C<tt>++</tt> undefined behavior. 
It has a performance cost, so if you are looking at <span class="sc">gdb</span>'s
performance, you should disable it.  The undefined behavior sanitizer
was first introduced in GCC 4.9. 
</dl>

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