So you can compile gcc/gdb to run on Windows system and compile/debug programs for Linux system. These GNU tools have compilation arguments called host and target. For simplicity, we'll concern ourselves only with gcc and gdb.īoth gcc and gdb has cross platform versions, so you can be on Linux/Windows and compile C programs for Windows/Linux. You can use those to (kind of) build and debug programs for other platforms. So, is there a way I can set the source-code directory to Windows-style in MSYS2 for a session? Or maybe I can set the source-code directory to MSYS2-style when building the project? Native shell doesn't work well with my gdb config, which was built for my Linux environment and uses gef. I cannot use the gdb from the native Windows shell. f/projects/neovim.įor some personal reasons, I have to use the gdb from MSYS2 shell. So I'm almost certain the problem is MSYS2 using unix filesytem, e.g. I ran gdb from a native shell (pwsh), from the MSYS2/MINGW64 bin directory, and from there I can see the source-code listing. The list command tells me the filename and linenumber but not the actual code. So, now when I invoke gdb from inside MSYS2 shell, most things work perfectly, except the source-code listing. # in MSYS2, but we cannot build inside the MSYS2 shell.Īnd since it was built from outside the MSYS2 shell, the debug info in the executable is set to native Windows filesystem, e.g. # MSYS2, this allows using all the dependencies and tools available # These are native MinGW builds, but they use the toolchain inside But the build script forces me to build it from a normal shell (cmd/pwsh). I built neovim with MSYS2 MINGW64 compiler. Let's use a real life example to see everything in action using this public demo project we put together. From here you can set breakpoints, add Watch variable, inspect registers, etc.

and that will launch the VSCode debugger.

To do that we'll need to install the C/C++ extension from the VSCode extension manager. Since VSCode is a multi-language IDE it doesn't have built-in on-target debugging for embedded C.

Setting Up VSCode For C Debugging With GDB And if you don't yet have VSCode installed on your computer, here's a guide we put together to get going with VSCode and WSL on Windows. In this example we'll walk through setting up GDB debugging using GDBServer + Lager in order to remotely debug an IMXRT1050 MCU. One nice thing about VSCode is it makes remote GDB debugging via Lager very easy.

It's cross-platform, not sluggish or bloated like some other IDEs, and seems to walk the line between being easy to use and giving users the ability to add features via extensions, similar to Sublime's Package Manager. A rising star in the IDE battles is VSCode from Microsoft.

Install gdb in windows