Contents of the @PVER@-dbg package

-------------------------------------

For debugging python and extension modules, you may want to add the contents

of /usr/share/doc/@PVER@/gdbinit (found in the @PVER@-dev package) to your

~/.gdbinit file.

@PVER@-dbg contains two sets of packages:

- debugging symbols for the standard @PVER@ build. When this package

is installed, gdb will automatically load up the debugging symbols

from it when debugging @PVER@ or one of the included extension

modules.

- a separate @PVER@-dbg binary, configured --with-pydebug, enabling the

additional debugging code to help debug memory management problems.

For the latter, all extension modules have to be recompiled to

correctly load with an pydebug enabled build.

Debian and Ubuntu specific changes to the debug interpreter

-----------------------------------------------------------

The python2.4 and python2.5 packages in Ubuntu feisty are modified to

first look for extension modules under a different name.

normal build: foo.so

debug build: foo_d.so foo.so

This naming schema allows installation of the extension modules into

the same path (The naming is directly taken from the Windows builds

which already uses this naming scheme).

See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PyDbgBuilds for more information.

Using the python-dbg builds

---------------------------

* Call the python-dbg or the pythonX.Y-dbg binaries instead of the

python or pythonX.Y binaries.

* Properties of the debug build are described in

/usr/share/doc/@PVER@/SpecialBuilds.txt.gz.

The debug interpreter is built with Py_DEBUG defined.

* From SpecialBuilds.txt: This is what is generally meant by "a debug

build" of Python. Py_DEBUG implies LLTRACE, Py_REF_DEBUG,

Py_TRACE_REFS, and PYMALLOC_DEBUG (if WITH_PYMALLOC is enabled).

In addition, C assert()s are enabled (via the C way: by not defining

NDEBUG), and some routines do additional sanity checks inside

"#ifdef Py_DEBUG" blocks.