Developer Setup: Debugging in Eclipse for Windows

Note: The steps below allow you to use the graphical debugger in Eclipse in a Windows PC environment to debug XCSoar.
As with all Eclipse wiki pages for XCSoar, please consider that Eclipse is not required for any part of development for XCSoar -- you can also debug XCSoar from the command line.

1) Install Eclipse

Follow steps to install and configure Eclipse on your Windows PC as described in:
http://xcsoar.org/trac/wiki/Advanced/Development/Setup/WindowsEclipse

2) Compile XCSoar

Use the Eclipse menu, "Project > Build" as described in Windows Eclipse setup page linked to in the step above to build XCSoar

Note: the command line may include the parameter "DEBUG=n". Don't worry, this is ok and does not prevent debugging in Eclipse.

3) Configure the Eclipse IDE to debug XCSoar

Click the "Run > Debug Configurations" menu

• Click the "Search Project" button and select the XCSoar-ns.exe executable. This is the executable with the debugging information in it.

• Click the "Debugger" tab.
• In the "Debugger" dropdown window, select the "MinGW gdb debugger" option
• In the GDB Debugger field, click the "Browse" button and select the "C:\msysgit\msysgit\mingw\bin\gdb.exe" debugger. (Note the path may be slightly different on you machine)

• Click the "Close" button to save your changes

4) Debugging

• Start the debugger by clicking "Run > Debug." It should use the configuration you just made.
• Click the Toolbar button with the "C" on it to show the project explorer to allow you to open you the XCSoar project files, so you can set breakpoints.
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Next steps

• You should now be able to start debug XCSoar in Eclipse using the MinGW GDB debugger, set breakpoints and evaluate expressions and variables using the Eclipse IDE.
• Visit Advanced/Development/Setup/WindowsEclipse/EGit? to learn about the Git abilities of Eclipse