Debug support

Use the -g option to enable debug support. In IBM® XL C/C++ for AIX® 16.1.0 and earlier releases, both the stabstrings and DWARF debugging information formats were supported and the default was stabstrings.

IBM Open XL C/C++ for AIX 17.1.3 supports only the DWARF debugging information format and the default DWARF version is DWARF 3.

In IBM Open XL C/C++ for AIX 17.1.3, you can use the following options to switch DWARF versions:
  • -gdwarf-2
  • -gdwarf, -gdwarf-3
  • -gdwarf-4
IBM Open XL C/C++ for AIX 17.1.3 can generate DWARF information tuned for the following debuggers:
  • The DBX debugger by using the -gdbx option, which is the default
  • The GDB debugger by using the -ggdb option
Note: The current release of DBX does not support the DWARF information generated by IBM Open XL C/C++ for AIX 17.1.3. A future release of DBX is planned to add this support.

TLS migration considerations for debugging

For debugging purposes, it is recommended that you inspect Thread-Local Storage (TLS) variables by compiling helper functions that return the addresses of these variables and then calling these helper functions from the debugger.

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