Appendix A. Formatting Documentation
The gdb 4 release includes an already-formatted reference card, ready
for printing with PostScript or Ghostscript, in the gdb
subdirectory of the main source directory[1]. If you can use PostScript or Ghostscript with your printer,
you can print the reference card immediately with refcard.ps.
The release also includes the source for the reference card. You
can format it, using TeX, by typing:
The gdb reference card is designed to print in landscape
mode on US "letter" size paper;
that is, on a sheet 11 inches wide by 8.5 inches
high. You will need to specify this form of printing as an option to
your dvi output program.
All the documentation for gdb comes as part of the machine-readable
distribution. The documentation is written in Texinfo format, which is
a documentation system that uses a single source file to produce both
on-line information and a printed manual. You can use one of the Info
formatting commands to create the on-line version of the documentation
and TeX (or texi2roff) to typeset the printed version.
gdb includes an already formatted copy of the on-line Info
version of this manual in the gdb subdirectory. The main Info
file is gdb-2003-07-22-cvs/gdb/gdb.info, and it refers to
subordinate files matching gdb.info* in the same directory. If
necessary, you can print out these files, or read them with any editor;
but they are easier to read using the info subsystem in gnu
Emacs or the standalone info program, available as part of the
gnu Texinfo distribution.
If you want to format these Info files yourself, you need one of the
Info formatting programs, such as texinfo-format-buffer or
makeinfo.
If you have makeinfo installed, and are in the top level
gdb source directory (gdb-2003-07-22-cvs, in the case of
version 2003-07-22-cvs), you can make the Info file by typing:
If you want to typeset and print copies of this manual, you need TeX,
a program to print its dvi output files, and texinfo.tex, the
Texinfo definitions file.
TeX is a typesetting program; it does not print files directly, but
produces output files called dvi files. To print a typeset
document, you need a program to print dvi files. If your system
has TeX installed, chances are it has such a program. The precise
command to use depends on your system; lpr -d is common; another
(for PostScript devices) is dvips. The dvi print command may
require a file name without any extension or a .dvi extension.
TeX also requires a macro definitions file called
texinfo.tex. This file tells TeX how to typeset a document
written in Texinfo format. On its own, TeX cannot either read or
typeset a Texinfo file. texinfo.tex is distributed with GDB
and is located in the gdb-version-number/texinfo
directory.
If you have TeX and a dvi printer program installed, you can
typeset and print this manual. First switch to the the gdb
subdirectory of the main source directory (for example, to
gdb-2003-07-22-cvs/gdb) and type:
Then give gdb.dvi to your dvi printing program.
