Note
	To use the GNU Debugger (GDB) effectively, you need to direct the compiler to include debugging information when it compiles your program. You can do this by using either the -g or the -ggdb compiler flag, as mentioned in Table 6.1, “Commonly used GCC flags”.

To debug a program using the GNU Debugger (GDB), type gdb program_to_debug (such as gdb lab2) at the prompt. You can then use GDB’s commands, some of which are listed in Table 6.2, “Commonly used GDB commands, Part 1” and Table 6.3, “Commonly used GDB commands, Part 2” below, to debug your program. GDB has many more commands than what is listed here; consult GDB’s built-in help for a complete listing. Also note that many commands have shortened versions: for example, you can type r in place of run. As with the shell (discussed in Section 3.1, “Features of the shell”), command history and command completion are available.

Finally, the command x/ (listing the contents of memory) is a particularly powerful command, but it's a fairly complex one, and describing it in detail is beyond the scope of this guide. Therefore, consulting help x while in GDB is recommended.

References to further reading on GDB can be found in Section A.5.4, “More on GDB”.