Set breakpoint in C or C++ code programmatically for gdb on Linux

Question

One way is to signal an interrupt:

#include <csignal>

// Generate an interrupt
std::raise(SIGINT);

In C:

#include <signal.h>
raise(SIGINT);

UPDATE: MSDN states that Windows doesn't really support SIGINT, so if portability is a concern, you're probably better off using SIGABRT.

By looking here, I found the following way:

void main(int argc, char** argv)
{
    asm("int $3");
    int a = 3;
    a++;  //  In gdb> print a;  expect result to be 3
}

This seems a touch hackish to me. And I think this only works on x86 architecture.

In a project I work on, we do this:

raise(SIGABRT);  /* To continue from here in GDB: "signal 0". */

(In our case we wanted to crash hard if this happened outside the debugger, generating a crash report if possible. That's one reason we used SIGABRT. Doing this portably across Windows, Mac, and Linux took several attempts. We ended up with a few #ifdefs, helpfully commented here: http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/file/98fa9c0cff7a/js/src/jsutil.cpp#l66 .)

Disappointing to see so many answers not using the dedicated signal for software breakpoints, SIGTRAP:

#include <signal.h>

raise(SIGTRAP); // At the location of the BP.

On MSVC/MinGW, you should use DebugBreak, or the __debugbreak intrinsic. A simple #ifdef can handle both cases (POSIX and Win32).