How to avoid entering library's source files while debugging in Qt Creator with gdb?

Question

How can I configure Qt Creator and/or gdb so that while debugging my program using Qt libraries the debugger would avoid stepping into Qt\'s source files?

Answer 1

The feature you want (as described by rpg) is not available from GDB, and IMHO would be difficult to use if it were implemented.

A similar, but simpler to use fstep feature is proposed for GDB. Given:

foo((string("Hello") + string(" World!)).c_str());

the fstep would skip all calls on the current line, except the last one (thus skipping string constructors, operator+(), and c_str(), and stepping only into foo).

This hasn't been implemented either, but likely will be in a couple of month (it's very useful for C++ debugging).

In the mean time, you can approximate the feature by setting a temporary breakpoint:

(gdb) list
1       #include 
2       #include 
3       using namespace std;
4
5       void foo(const char *s)
6       {
7         cout << s << endl;
8       }
9
10      int main()
11      {
12        foo((string("Hello") + string(" World!")).c_str());
13        return 0;
14      }
(gdb) b main
Breakpoint 2 at 0x8048901: file t.cc, line 12.
(gdb) run

Breakpoint 1, main () at t.cc:12
12        foo((string("Hello") + string(" World!")).c_str());
(gdb) tb foo
Breakpoint 3 at 0x80488ca: file t.cc, line 7.
(gdb) c
foo (s=0x804a1f4 "Hello World!") at t.cc:7
7         cout << s << endl;
(gdb) q