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In Xcode 4.3, now you can enable using LLDB as the debugger for iOS targets.
What advantages does it have over using the good old GDB? GDB still works with LLVM and I cannot see any obvious differences in "everyday" debugging tasks.
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In brief, LLDB and GDB are two debuggers. The main difference between LLDB and GDB is that in LLDB, the programmer can debug programs written in C, Objective C and C++ while, in GDB, the programmer can debug programs written in Ada, C, C++, Objective C, Pascal, FORTRAN and Go.
The standard LLDB installation provides you with an extensive set of commands designed to be compatible with familiar GDB commands. In addition to using the standard configuration, you can easily customize LLDB to suit your needs. Both GDB and LLDB are of course excellent debuggers without doubt.
What is LLDB? A low-level debugger (LLDB) is the default debugger used in Xcode and is part of the LLVM project. LLDB replaced GDB in XCode 5 and has several advantages, such as performance and scriptability.
GDB is part of the GNU framework, and was created to work alongside of g++ , which is the GNU C++ compiler. LLDB is part of the LLVM framework, and was created to work alongside of clang++ , which is the LLVM C++ compiler. Ideally, you would use the debugger of the same framework that the compiler is part of.
The most notable advantage is that LLDB understands dot syntax in properties:
po self.property
A quote from LLVM project blog:
LLDB supports basic command line debugging scenarios on the Mac, is scriptable, and has great support for multithreaded debugging. LLDB is already much faster than GDB when debugging large programs, and has the promise to provide a much better user experience (particularly for C++ programmers). We are excited to see the new platforms, new features, and enhancements that the broader LLVM community is interested in.
Another quote from LLDB homepage:
LLDB is a next generation, high-performance debugger. It is built as a set of reusable components which highly leverage existing libraries in the larger LLVM Project, such as the Clang expression parser and LLVM disassembler.
Why a new debugger
In order to achieve our goals we decided to start with a fresh architecture that would support modern multi-threaded programs, handle debugging symbols in an efficient manner, use compiler based code knowledge and have plug-in support for functionality and extensions. Additionally we want the debugger capabilities to be available to other analysis tools, be they scripts or compiled programs, without requiring them to be GPL.
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