HP gnu source-level debugger 5992-4701 - Manual (Page 31)

type the interrupt character at any time because GDB does not allow it to take effect
until a time when it is safe.
You can use the detach command to release an attached process or device.
2.3 Shell commands
If you need to execute occasional shell commands during your debugging session,
there is no need to leave or suspend GDB; you can just use the shell command.
shell command string Invoke a standard shell to execute command string. If it
exists, the environment variable SHELL determines
which shell to run. Otherwise GDB uses the default
shell ('/bin/sh' on UNIX systems, 'COMMAND.COM' on
MS-DOS, and so on.).
The utility make is often needed in development environments. You do not have to
use the shell command for this purpose in GDB:
make make-args Execute the make program with the specified arguments. This
is equivalent to 'shell make make-args'.
2.3 Shell commands 31