### C.4 Specifying Names for Hosts and Targets ¶

The specifications used for hosts and targets in the `configure` script are based on a three-part naming scheme, but some short predefined aliases are also supported. The full naming scheme encodes three pieces of information in the following pattern:

    architecture-vendor-os

For example, you can use the alias `sun4` as a host argument, or as the value for target in a `--target=target` option. The equivalent full name is ‘`sparc-sun-sunos4`’.

The `configure` script accompanying GDB does not provide any query facility to list all supported host and target names or aliases. `configure` calls the Bourne shell script `config.sub` to map abbreviations to full names; you can read the script, if you wish, or you can use it to test your guesses on abbreviations—for example:

    % sh config.sub i386-linux
    i386-pc-linux-gnu
    % sh config.sub alpha-linux
    alpha-unknown-linux-gnu
    % sh config.sub hp9k700
    hppa1.1-hp-hpux
    % sh config.sub sun4
    sparc-sun-sunos4.1.1
    % sh config.sub sun3
    m68k-sun-sunos4.1.1
    % sh config.sub i986v
    Invalid configuration `i986v': machine `i986v' not recognized

`config.sub` is also distributed in the GDB source directory (`gdb-16.3.90.20250906-git`, for version 16.3.90.20250906-git).