Attach to Android process from Qt Creator

Question

I use Qt Creator to develop an Android dynamic library, i.e. a .so file. This .so file is then used by an Android application, but that is developed in Eclipse.

I need to debug my native code, but since it's a library, I can't start the application from Qt Creator, I must attach to the already running process.

Now, if it were a desktop application, I'd use Debug->Start Debugging->Attach to Running Application, but how do I attach to an Android process, which would be running on the emulator or on a connected phone, which is more like remote-debugging?

I think that I should use Debug->Start Debugging->Attach to Running Debug Server:

However, I'm not sure what the exact steps are - how do I start a debug server for ADB, and which port do I connect to?

Answer 1

So it looks like there may be another way to set up a debugger that can connect properly.

http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/qt-creator/2012-June/001017.html

Set a toolchain with this version of gdb, and set your project to use it. In Tools -> Options -> Debugger -> GDB insert your commands in "Additional Startup Commands"

...

I use Debug -> Start Debugging -> Attach to Remote. All the fields are there (solib-absolute-prefix is an alias for sysroot, and "location of debugging information" is solib-search-path), and the last few "configurations" are stored, so you can call them back easily. I have to start gdbserver on the target manually, set a shortcut to open the 'attach to remote' dialog, and it is been working great for me so for.

It's old (June 2012), but it goes into better detail about how the gdbserver is started and the setup for a debugger and attaching to a process in Qt. It also mentions some of the relevant environment variables:

set solib-absolute-prefix $ANDROID_SRC/out/target/product/MYPRODUCT/symbols/
set solib-search-path $ANDROID_SRC/out/target/product/MYPRODUCT/symbols/system/lib/

Hope that helps.