What is the recommended way to perform source-level debugging of system library calls?

Question

I have a need to debug into some calls in system libraries, to understand how the calls differ, and why one or another would be failing.

It is now common for Linux d

Answer 1

Did you try to set the debug-file-directory parameter in GDB? As per the documentation you pointed out, it should do what you want:

set debug-file-directory directories Set the directories which gdb searches for separate debugging information files to directory. Multiple directory components can be set concatenating them by a directory separator.

show debug-file-directory Show the directories gdb searches for separate debugging information files.

For instance in my Fedora distribution, the directory is /usr/lib/debug.

You can also define it at compile time with

configure --with-separate-debug-dir=/usr/lib/debug ...