C.6 System-wide configuration and settings

GDB can be configured to have a system-wide init file and a system-wide init file directory; this file and files in that directory (if they have a recognized file extension) will be read and executed at startup (see What GDB does during startup).

Here are the corresponding configure options:

--with-system-gdbinit=file

Specify that the default location of the system-wide init file is file.

--with-system-gdbinit-dir=directory

Specify that the default location of the system-wide init file directory is directory.

If GDB has been configured with the option --prefix=$prefix, they may be subject to relocation. Two possible cases:

• If the default location of this init file/directory contains $prefix, it will be subject to relocation. Suppose that the configure options are --prefix=$prefix --with-system-gdbinit=$prefix/etc/gdbinit; if GDB is moved from $prefix to $install, the system init file is looked for as $install/etc/gdbinit instead of $prefix/etc/gdbinit.
• By contrast, if the default location does not contain the prefix, it will not be relocated. E.g. if GDB has been configured with --prefix=/usr/local --with-system-gdbinit=/usr/share/gdb/gdbinit, then GDB will always look for /usr/share/gdb/gdbinit, wherever GDB is installed.

If the configured location of the system-wide init file (as given by the --with-system-gdbinit option at configure time) is in the data-directory (as specified by --with-gdb-datadir at configure time) or in one of its subdirectories, then GDB will look for the system-wide init file in the directory specified by the --data-directory command-line option. Note that the system-wide init file is only read once, during GDB initialization. If the data-directory is changed after GDB has started with the set data-directory command, the file will not be reread.

This applies similarly to the system-wide directory specified in --with-system-gdbinit-dir.

Any supported scripting language can be used for these init files, as long as the file extension matches the scripting language. To be interpreted as regular GDB commands, the files needs to have a .gdb extension.