Debugging with GDB: Screen Size

Next: Output Styling, Previous: Command History, Up: Controlling GDB [Contents][Index]

### 22.4 Screen Size

Certain commands to GDB may produce large amounts of information output to the screen. To help you read all of it, GDB pauses and asks you for input at the end of each page of output. Type `RET` when you want to see one more page of output, `q` to discard the remaining output, or `c` to continue without paging for the rest of the current command. Also, the screen width setting determines when to wrap lines of output. Depending on what is being printed, GDB tries to break the line at a readable place, rather than simply letting it overflow onto the following line.

Normally GDB knows the size of the screen from the terminal driver software. For example, on Unix GDB uses the termcap data base together with the value of the `TERM` environment variable and the `stty rows` and `stty cols` settings. If this is not correct, you can override it with the `set height` and `set width` commands:

`set height lpp`
`set height unlimited`
`show height`
`set width cpl`
`set width unlimited`
`show width`

  These `set` commands specify a screen height of lpp lines and a screen width of cpl characters. The associated `show` commands display the current settings.

  If you specify a height of either `unlimited` or zero lines, GDB does not pause during output no matter how long the output is. This is useful if output is to a file or to an editor buffer.

  Likewise, you can specify ‘`set width unlimited`’ or ‘`set width 0`’ to prevent GDB from wrapping its output.

`set pagination on`
`set pagination off`

  Turn the output pagination on or off; the default is on. Turning pagination off is the alternative to `set height unlimited`. Note that running GDB with the `--batch` option (see -batch) also automatically disables pagination.

`show pagination`

  Show the current pagination mode.

Next: Output Styling, Previous: Command History, Up: Controlling GDB [Contents][Index]