Codeblocks For Mac Catalina
If you work on a Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks or later, you will run into the problem of Eclipse refusing to interactively debug problems that otherwise build and run fine: An attempt to start a debugging session by selecting Run
Debug from the menu will result in Eclipse complaining that an Error with command: gdb --version
has occurred.
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- Codeblocks For Mac Catalina Update
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The problem is caused by Apple switching away from GDB, the GNU debugger, to LLDB, the LLVM debugger, in their Xcode toolchain (along with the transition from GCC to Clang). Unfortunately, Eclipse is not capable of communicating with any debugger other than GDB (yet). Here is a step-by-step guide for installing and configuring GDB.
Jan 07, 2019 Due to lack of active developers by the Code::Blocks team there is currently no native Code::Blocks version available for the macOS platform which is newer than v13.12 (Published 2013). Nov 11, 2020 I used to use Code::Blocks a lot on Linux years ago (I created in house tools using wxWidgets so CB was an obvious choice). Now I'm trying to build Code::Blocks on my Mac and I ran into an issue related to squirrel (if I'm not mistaken), but I'm not familiar with it at all (or the CB codebase in large, to be honest).
Installing GDB
As with GCC, the easiest way to install GDB is through Homebrew. In a Terminal window, run the command brew install gdb
, and wait for it to complete. (As usual, it may ask for your password.)
Now, we need to code-sign the GDB executable, so it will be allowed to control other processes, as necessary for a debugger. For that, we will first create a new certificate in Keychain.
Creating a Certificate

Open the Keychain Access application (can be found in Applications/Utilities directory or through Spotlight). Select Certificate Assistant
Create a Certificate in the application menu (Keychain Access). An assistant window will appear for guiding you through the process.
- First, you will be asked for the name and type of the certificate. You may choose the name arbitrarily, but to simplify its future use in command line, prefer names without spaces or other fancy characters, e.g.,
gdbcert
. - Make sure that Identity Type is set to Self Signed Root, change Certificate Type to Code Signing, check the Let me override defaults checkbox, and click Continue. Click Continue again in the popup prompt warning about the certificate being self-signed.
- On the next page, leave Security Number to be 1, and set Validity Period to a large enough number of days to cover the duration of the class or more, say, 365. (Certificates cannot last forever; the maximum validity period is 20 years.)
- Then click Continue once again, and keep doing so to skip the next six screens until you see the one entitled Specify a Location For The Certificate. For the only property, Keychain, choose System from the drop-down list. Lastly, click Create, type in your password, if prompted, and click Done.
- Back in the main window, choose the System keychain in the sidebar on the left, and select the newly created certificate from the list. Open the context menu and select Get Info. In the information window that will appear, expand the Trust section and set the Code Signing property to Always Trust. Close this window (you may be asked for your password), and quit Keychain Access.

Signing GDB
Our new certificate is now ready to be used. In order to make it immediately available for signing, we need to restart the Taskgate access-control service. You can use Activity Monitor to do this (also found in Applications/Utilities). Open it and filter the list of processes by typing taskgated
in the search field in the toolbar. (If you cannot find it, make sure the menu item View
All Processes is checked.)
There should be exactly one process left in the list. Highlight it, then select View
Quit Process from the menu, and click Quit in the popup prompt. The Taskgate process will be terminated and, consequently, should disappear from the list. In a few seconds, it will be restarted by the system and should reappear in the list. Please wait for this to happen (it may take up to a minute or two, at worst).
Finally, in a Terminal window, run codesign -s gdbcert /usr/local/bin/gdb
(if you named your certificate differently, replace gdbcert
with its name here). Once again, you will be prompted for you username and password. If the command does not produce any output, then GDB is successfully signed.
Configuring Eclipse
The only thing left to do is to point Eclipse to the GDB executable. Open Eclipse
Preferences from the main menu (not to be confused with Project Preferences). In the tree of options listed in the sidebar, navigate to C/C++
Debug
GDB, and set the GDB debugger field to /usr/local/bin/gdb
.
If there is no GDB section in the C/C++
Debug subtree, close the preferences window, and try to first start a debugging session for any project that you can already run without problems. You can do it by either clicking the Debug button on the toolbar, or selecting Run
Debug from the main menu. This attempt will, of course, fail with an error message about the gdb
command, but it will force the said C/C++
Debug
GDB settings to appear in the preferences.
This will change the GDB executable for new projects; for all existing ones (that you are going to use debugging for), you will need to manually update their debug configurations. To do that, select Run
Debug Configurations from the menu. In the window that appears, one after another, select every project under the C++ Application section in the sidebar. For each of them, open the Debugger tab, set the GDB debugger field to the same path /usr/local/bin/gdb
, and click the Apply button. After repeating this change for all listed projects, click Close.
Codeblocks Download For Mac
If the above steps do not solve the issue on your machine, or you encounter a problem while following them, please do not hesitate to come to one of the upcoming common labs for help.
Code Blocks is a free and cross platform IDE for C, C++ and Fortran. Code Blocks. You can install Code Blocks in any version of macOS like macOS 10.15 (aka macOS Catalina) or macOS 11.0 (aka macOS Big Sur).
Due to lack of Mac developers, Code Blocks version is not up to date as compared to Windows version but still the last release of Code Blocks still runs on the latest version of macOS.
Here the list of features available in Code Blocks IDE -
Features
- Code Blocks supports multiple compilers like GCC, clang, MSVC++, Borland C++ 5.5 and many more.
- Code Blocks provides a very fast custom build system which supports parallel builds (utilizing your CPU's extra cores)
- Code Blocks debugger provides full breakpoints, display user defined watches, call stacks, cpu registers etc.
- Code Blocks interface supports syntax highlighting for C, C++, Fortran, XML and many more files.
- Code Blocks interface also provides code completion for C and C++.
How to install Code Blocks
Download the latest version Code Blocks for macOS Operating System from here - http://www.codeblocks.org/downloads
'OR' You can also download latest version for macOS directly from following download button if above method doesn't works -Run the downloaded
.dmg
file to install Code Blocks on macOS.Follow the setup instructions.
Open Applications folder and run Code Blocks app.
You can watch following video to check how to download and install Code Blocks IDE for Windows -
Mac Catalina Update
Tutorials
Codeblocks For Mac Catalina Update
Other Useful Links
How To Install Codeblocks
