In ANSI C, dereferencing a pointer, p, is accomplished by *p.
In Modula-2, it is accomplished by pˆ.
Values can also be represented (and displayed) differently. Hex numbers in C appear as ‘0x1ae’, while in Modula-2 they appear as ‘1AEH’.
Language-specific information is built into GDB for some languages, allowing you to express operations like the previous in your program’s native language, and allowing GDB to output values in a manner consistent with the syntax of your program’s native language.
The language you use to build expressions is called the working language.
See the following documentation for more specific discussion on languages that GDB accomodates.