Using Ada Expressions (GNAT User’s Guide for Native Platforms)

#### 6.1.4 Using Ada Expressions ¶

`GDB` supports a very large subset of Ada expression syntax, with some extensions. The philosophy behind the design of this subset is

> - `GDB` should provide basic literals and access to operations for arithmetic, dereferencing, field selection, indexing, and subprogram calls, leaving more sophisticated computations to subprograms written into the program (which therefore may be called from `GDB`).
> - Type safety and strict adherence to Ada language restrictions are not particularly relevant in a debugging context.
> - Brevity is important to the `GDB` user.

Thus, for brevity, the debugger acts as if there were implicit `with` and `use` clauses in effect for all user-written packages, thus making it unnecessary to fully qualify most names with their packages, regardless of context. Where this causes ambiguity, `GDB` asks the user’s intent.

For details on the supported Ada syntax, see Debugging with GDB.