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17<title>Debugging with GDB: Manually</title>
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64<a name="Manually"></a>
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66<p>
67Next: <a href="Automatically.html#Automatically" accesskey="n" rel="next">Automatically</a>, Previous: <a href="Filenames.html#Filenames" accesskey="p" rel="previous">Filenames</a>, Up: <a href="Setting.html#Setting" accesskey="u" rel="up">Setting</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Concept-Index.html#Concept-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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70<a name="Setting-the-Working-Language"></a>
71<h4 class="subsection">15.1.2 Setting the Working Language</h4>
72
73<p>If you allow <small>GDB</small> to set the language automatically,
74expressions are interpreted the same way in your debugging session and
75your program.
76</p>
77<a name="index-set-language"></a>
78<p>If you wish, you may set the language manually.  To do this, issue the
79command &lsquo;<samp>set language <var>lang</var></samp>&rsquo;, where <var>lang</var> is the name of
80a language, such as
81<code>c</code> or <code>modula-2</code>.
82For a list of the supported languages, type &lsquo;<samp>set language</samp>&rsquo;.
83</p>
84<p>Setting the language manually prevents <small>GDB</small> from updating the working
85language automatically.  This can lead to confusion if you try
86to debug a program when the working language is not the same as the
87source language, when an expression is acceptable to both
88languages&mdash;but means different things.  For instance, if the current
89source file were written in C, and <small>GDB</small> was parsing Modula-2, a
90command such as:
91</p>
92<div class="smallexample">
93<pre class="smallexample">print a = b + c
94</pre></div>
95
96<p>might not have the effect you intended.  In C, this means to add
97<code>b</code> and <code>c</code> and place the result in <code>a</code>.  The result
98printed would be the value of <code>a</code>.  In Modula-2, this means to compare
99<code>a</code> to the result of <code>b+c</code>, yielding a <code>BOOLEAN</code> value.
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