difference between gdb, mdb and soft debugger

Question

Mono supports three different debuggers Gdb, mdb(mono debugger) and mono soft debugger. I want to know that are the differences between them?

For debugging C# applications which is better?

Edit

On Linux I primarily use MonoDevelop and on Windows for small apps I use either MonoDevelop or SharpDevelop and for larger application Visual Studio.

Answer 1

• gdb is the gnu debugger, it has some mono support and is a very well known versitle debugger but not very helpful for C# debugging unless you wish to debug parts of the mono runtime itself.

• mdb is the mono command line debugger, AKA the 'hard debugger' it can debug both managed and unmanaged code.

• mono-soft-debugger is the new debugger that is now preferred by monodevelop, it can be made debug remote targets (such as android or iphone apps) but cannot step into unmanaged code.

Newer versions of monodevelop support gdb for C/C++ programs and the soft debugger for .Net programs.

On linux you will almost always find it easiest and quickest to debug within monodevelop, so you'll be using the soft debugger when doing that. If you are on windows you can of course install mono and monodevelop but also get the added option of using the microsoft debugger in sharpdevelop or visual studio.