Can I use Eclipse CDT to debug a prebuilt C++ executable?

Question

On Linux, I have some C++ programs built with my own makefiles, and I'm looking for some GUI debuggers to debug them at source level.

Previously I use KDbg(2.5.2) on openSUSE(12.3). It works but with some very annoying limitation, eg, I cannot set a breakpoint when the debugged program is not trapped by Kdbg -- I mean, in order to set a new breakpoint, I have to set it before the program is launched or the program pauses on hitting an already set breakpoint.

Now I try to use Eclipse CDT. I got eclipse-cpp-juno-SR2-linux-gtk.tar.gz but find that I don't know how to load my executable so to start debugging.

I googled with words like 『eclipse debug pre-built C binary』, but few seems to care about this feature.

Can Eclipse CDT really do that? If Eclipse CDT can't, is there any better alternatives to KDbg? Please help.

Answer 1

According to hint from this answer, https://stackoverflow.com/a/248119/151453 , I finally figure out how to do it.

The key point is: In the Eclipse CDT project, create/edit a Launch Configuration so to tell the debugger what executable to load.

Now I have to admit, Eclipse CDT does quite well in C++ code debugging far better than KDbg.

Some screen shot below, on openSUSE 12.3 .

Now we can Run -> Debug (F11)

Debugger automatically pauses the program at main()'s first statement.

Answer 2

The Stand-alone Debugger is an Eclipse application which packages the Eclipse plug-ins from the CDT (C/C++ Development Tools) project into an application that can be started from a command-line script:

bash /path/scripts/cdtdebug.sh -e executable [args]