Unable to compile GDB with expat for use with remote debugging

Question

I have been trying to compile a copy of GDB on 64 bit X86 Ubuntu for use with remote debugging of an ARM device. This means compiling GDB using expat; GDB uses XML parsing when connecting to a remote debugger. Here are some of the things I've tried, and the results.

Compile with just --with-expat

./configure --target=arm-none-eabi --with-expat 
make

....
checking whether to use expat... yes
checking for libexpat... (cached) no
configure: error: expat is missing or unusable
Makefile:9125: recipe for target 'configure-gdb' failed
....

Compile with --with-libexpat-prefix

ls -alg /usr/local/lib/*expat*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root 999128 Mar 20 23:55 /usr/local/lib/libexpat.a
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root    942 Mar 20 23:55 /usr/local/lib/libexpat.la
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root     17 Mar 20 23:55 /usr/local/lib/libexpat.so -> libexpat.so.1.6.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root     17 Mar 20 23:55 /usr/local/lib/libexpat.so.1 -> libexpat.so.1.6.0
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 534224 Mar 20 23:55 /usr/local/lib/libexpat.so.1.6.0

./configure --target=arm-none-eabi --with-expat --with-libexpat-prefix=/usr/local/lib
make

....
checking whether to use expat... yes
checking for libexpat... (cached) no
configure: error: expat is missing or unusable
Makefile:9125: recipe for target 'configure-gdb' failed
....

I've tried to install expat in every way I can think of. The above library binaries are from a local compile of expat with make install; I've also done:

apt-get install libexpat1-dev
apt-get install expat

Both are already the newest version. Same results as above; I can only compile if I omit --with-expat and --with-libexpat-prefix.

Suggestions welcome. How can I find out more about the failure - how can I figure out how/where the make process is failing to find/approve of expat?

Fellow travellers (but I found no working answers here):

gdb building with expat

http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gdb.devel/29306

gdb remote cross debugging fails with "Remote 'g' packet reply is too long"

Answer 1

Configuration command line for aarch64-gdb arm64 bit, build

This is for debugging aarch64 running a FreeBSD operating system, but
you may substitute Linux in place of FreeBSD  I build this to debug a
Raspberry Pi 4B SBC,  using a [Tigard Board][1] running OpenOCD, then
using aarch64-gdb to connect over the OpenOCD software to that BCM2711
Here are 4 lines, that may help you test and build your own arm32-gdb
or aarch64-gdb for Linux or FreeBSD. I know I was looking for examples
on how to configure and build GDB for Arm64.  [Flirc Jeff Probe][2] is
another JTAG OpenOCD probe to look for your 3.3V ttl serial UART
connection to the target board using one port on the FT232H FTDI chip
and using the 2nd port to connect to JTAG pins.

FreeBSD.org/where location for 14.0-RELEASE images for x86_64 pc and Aarch64 Raspberry Pi SBCs 3/4/5

../configure --target=aarch64-freebsd  --enable-target=amd64  --program-prefix=aarch64-  --with-expat --with-libexpat-prefix=/usr/local/
  
../configure --target=aarch64-unknown-freebsd  --program-prefix=aarch64-  --with-expat --with-libexpat-prefix=/usr/local/
  
../configure --target=aarch64-elf-freebsd --program-prefix=aarch64-  --with-expat --with-libexpat-prefix=/usr/local/
  
../configure --target=arm-elf-linux --program-prefix=arm-  --with-expat --with-libexpat-prefix=/usr/local/

https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/releases/download/R_2_6_1/expat-2.6.1.tar.gz

cd  /working_home_directory
mkdir -p ./src/gdb/gdb-14.2/build-aarch64-gdb

Mar 10, 2024, 17:05:32 build expat-2.6.1

su -
password: 
cd  src/gdb
wget -c https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/releases/download/R_2_6_1/expat-2.6.1.tar.gz
gunzip expat-2.6.1.tar.gz
tar xvf expat-2.6.1.tar.gz
cd expat-2.6.1
./configure
make
sudo make install

Now configure and make build aarch64 GDB

cd  ../../gdb-14.2/build-aarch64-gdb
 ../configure --target=aarch64-elf-freebsd --program-prefix=aarch64-  --with-expat --with-libexpat-prefix=/usr/local/
make
sudo make install

if you make a mistake, you will run make distclean and rm config.cache files

make distclean
find . -name "config.cache" -print
find . -name "config.cache" -print | xargs ls -lh 
find . -name "config.cache" -print | xargs ls -1 | xargs rm -v

re-run the ../configure line and then make ; sudo make install

URLS to read

I got a debug probe, here's a bash script to build GDB for ARM

This is posted over on forums.raspberrypi.com

GhostBSD-Arm64 blog building aarch64-gdb gnu debugger on host linux and target aarch64 Raspberry Pi 4B running FreeBSD

This is my personal blog post about porting GhostBSD.org  to Arm64.  I needed to build a version of aarch64-gdb to run on MX-Linux 21 Wildflower and that would debug FreeBSD aarch64 running on Raspberry Pi 4B, BCM2711  hardware single board computer.

Answer 2

The version of gdb 8.3 has the same problem. I thought of various ways, but I still can't work. In the end, I used the 10.2 version and all the problems were gone. God bless you, Good luck.

Answer 3

I ran into the exact same situation. While I can not give an exact reason for the trouble, I believe it may have something to do with makeinfo. When trying to upgrade from gdb-7.6 to gdb-7.11, I ran into a few things I needed to download along the way; thus rerunning configure and make a few times with package installations in between The long short: I deleted the gdb-7.11 folder, untared it a fresh, and it ran through just fine linking with expat: ./configure --with-read-line --with-expat

Answer 4

On Ubuntu gdb your-program <- this is not correct arm-linux-gnueabihf-gdb your-program <- this is correct remote gdb

Answer 5

I made two changes that got it working for me.

First, my ./configure command was subtly wrong. Instead of

./configure --target=arm-none-eabi --with-expat --with-libexpat-prefix=/usr/local/lib

it should be

./configure --target=arm-none-eabi --with-expat --with-libexpat-prefix=/usr/local/

because the prefix is supposed to be above both include and lib. From the configure file:

--with-expat            include expat support (auto/yes/no)
--with-libexpat-prefix[=DIR]  search for libexpat in DIR/include and DIR/lib

But I'm not sure that was the real solution. I was still getting the same compile error until I accidentally started the compile from the gdb directory in the root directory for gdb. Let me be totally explicit:

root@scallion:~/gdb-arm-build/gdb-7.11# ls -alg
total 5016
drwxr-xr-x 16 root    4096 Mar 21 23:48 .
drwxr-xr-x  3 root    4096 Mar 20 16:54 ..
drwxr-xr-x  7 root   20480 Mar 21 23:48 bfd
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200  492650 Feb 24 01:55 ChangeLog
-rwxrwxrwx  1  200    7333 Feb 19  2015 compile
drwxr-xr-x  2 root    4096 Mar 20 16:54 config
-rwxrwxrwx  1  200   43614 Feb  9 19:19 config.guess
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200   25713 Feb  9 19:19 config-ml.in
-rwxrwxrwx  1  200   14916 Jun 11  2014 config.rpath
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root   31637 Mar 21 23:48 config.status
-rwxrwxrwx  1  200   36139 Feb  9 19:19 config.sub
-rwxrwxrwx  1  200  486119 Feb 24 01:55 configure
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200  113771 Feb 24 01:59 configure.ac
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200   18002 Jun 11  2014 COPYING
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200   35147 Jun 11  2014 COPYING3
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200    7639 Jun 11  2014 COPYING3.LIB
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200   25291 Jun 11  2014 COPYING.LIB
drwxr-xr-x  2 root    4096 Mar 20 16:54 cpu
-rwxrwxrwx  1  200   22464 Feb 19  2015 depcomp
-rw-r--r--  1  200    1887 Feb 24 01:59 djunpack.bat
drwxr-xr-x  2 root    4096 Mar 21 23:49 etc
drwxr-xr-x 27 root   36864 Mar 21 23:51 gdb **<<<<<<<< Here**
drwxr-xr-x 12 root    4096 Mar 20 16:54 include
-rwxrwxrwx  1  200   14675 Feb 19  2015 install-sh
drwxr-xr-x  2 root    4096 Mar 21 23:48 intl
drwxr-xr-x  4 root    4096 Mar 21 23:49 libdecnumber
drwxr-xr-x  4 root   12288 Mar 21 23:48 libiberty
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200  263820 Feb  9 19:19 libtool.m4
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200    1768 Jun 11  2014 ltgcc.m4
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200  249723 Jun 11  2014 ltmain.sh
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200    6126 Jun 11  2014 lt~obsolete.m4
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200   11950 Jun 11  2014 ltoptions.m4
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200    4372 Jun 11  2014 ltsugar.m4
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200     703 Jun 11  2014 ltversion.m4
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200    3909 Feb 19  2015 MAINTAINERS
-rw-r--r--  1 root  414118 Mar 21 23:48 Makefile
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200   30110 Feb  9 19:19 Makefile.def
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200 1719859 Feb 24 01:57 Makefile.in
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200   69660 Feb 24 01:55 Makefile.tpl
-rw-r--r--  1  200  736309 Feb 24 01:59 md5.sum
-rwxrwxrwx  1  200    6872 Feb 19  2015 missing
-rwxrwxrwx  1  200    2179 Jun 11  2014 mkdep
-rwxrwxrwx  1  200    3538 Feb 19  2015 mkinstalldirs
-rwxrwxrwx  1  200    2636 Feb 19  2015 move-if-change
drwxr-xr-x  5 root   12288 Mar 21 23:49 opcodes
drwxr-xr-x  7 root    4096 Mar 21 23:49 readline
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200    1719 Jun 11  2014 README
-rw-rw-rw-  1  200     961 Jun 11  2014 README-maintainer-mode
-rw-r--r--  1 root      13 Mar 21 23:48 serdep.tmp
drwxr-xr-x 33 root    4096 Mar 21 23:49 sim
-rwxrwxrwx  1  200    9150 Feb  9 19:19 src-release.sh
-rwxrwxrwx  1  200    2265 Jun 11  2014 symlink-tree
drwxr-xr-x  2 root    4096 Mar 20 16:54 texinfo
-rwxrwxrwx  1  200    6421 Feb 19  2015 ylwrap
drwxr-xr-x 14 root    4096 Mar 21 23:48 zlib

Not until I ran make from the directory gdb-arm-build/gdb-7.11/gdb did it succeed for me. Using the resulting gdb binary, I can now connect to the target, stop, start, look at registers, symbols, etc. If I find there's anything deficient about my compile I will follow up, but for now I'm good.

I don't know what I'm not understanding here, so if someone can shed light on what mistake I was making, I'd appreciate it.