Hi there, On Fri, 28 Jul 2006, 09:38:56 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

BFD: BFD 2.13.90 20020903 assertion fail libbfd.c:1132

Can anyone help me explain this error? I see multiple of these when running an app in gdb. I'm using gcc 4.1.1, binutils 2.17,

The message comes from gdb's BFD which is apparently quite old. The message is generated when some inconsistency inside an object files internals has been found. Gdb has its own copy of BFD which is not necessarily compatible with newer versions of binutils; current gdb-6.5 for instance should emit a line similar to the following: BFD: BFD 2.17.50 20060514 assertion fail libbfd.c:xxxx (don't know which linenumber that would be, though)

I suspect a build problem or a mismatch in e.g. binutils or something.

As a rule of thumb, when you want to debug object files/executables which have been generated by a recent version of binutils, you should also use a current gdb.

/Per Jessen, Zürich

HTH, cheers. l8er manfred

On Fri, 28 Jul 2006, 10:42:16 +0200, Manfred Hollstein wrote:

[...] BFD: BFD 2.17.50 20060514 assertion fail libbfd.c:xxxx

FWIW, "BFD" stands for Binary File Descriptor and has been created to hide the various details of different object file formats (a.out, COFF, ELF, ...) and other stuff from the various programs dealing with object files such as "as, ld, nm, ar, gdb, ...". The sources for BFD are contained in binutils and gdb, which are on different release tracks unfortunately; hence to potential for incompatibilities. Cheers. l8er manfred