Beginner issue: Errors loading .el files in Emacs - emacs

Question

I'm an Emacs beginner. I just installed a Emacs on Linux. I want to integrate Emacs with gdb.
Based on some instruction from the internet, I downloaded 2 .el files: multi-gdb-ui.el and multi-gud.el. I put these 2 files in
/tmp/test/emacs/multi-gdb-ui.el
and
/tmp/test/emacs/multi-gud.el
I created a new .emacs file. I only put the following lines in it:
[root#localhost ~]# cat .emacs
(setq gdb-many-windows t)
;; this is used for GDB
(load-library "/tmp/test/emacs/multi-gud.el")
(load-library "/tmp/test/emacs/multi-gdb-ui.el")
Then I launched Emacs. But I got many errors. It asked me to launch it with --debug-init,
so I ran the following:
emacs --debug-init
I got these errors:
Debugger entered--Lisp error: (void-variable overlay-arrow-variable-list)
add-to-list(overlay-arrow-variable-list gud-overlay-arrow-position)
eval-buffer(#<buffer *load*<2>> nil "/tmp/test/emacs/multi-gud.el" nil t)
load-with-code-conversion("/tmp/test/emacs/multi-gud.el" "/tmp/shili/emacs/multi-gud.el" nil nil)
load("/tmp/shili/emacs/multi-gud.el")
load-library("/tmp/shili/emacs/multi-gud.el")
eval-buffer(#<buffer *load*> nil "~/.emacs" nil t)
load-with-code-conversion("/root/.emacs" "~/.emacs" t t)
load("~/.emacs" t t)
#[nil "^H\205\227^# ▒=\203^Q^#▒^H▒Q\2025^# ▒=\203'^#▒▒▒▒#\203#^#▒\2025^#▒\2025^# ▒=\2031^#▒\2025^#▒^H▒Q^Z▒^S▒\n▒\211#\210^K▒=\203F^#▒^S^K\203\210^#▒^K!▒\232\203$
command-line()
normal-top-level()
So how can I load these 2 .el files successfully?

Answer 1

The issue appears to be caused because the folders containing the source files at issue have apparently not been added to the load-path of Emacs. In this particular case, the original poster may either add the following directories to the load-path (i.e., /tmp/shili/emacs/ and /tmp/test/emacs/); or, the source files at issue may be placed inside an Emacs directory that is already wired with the load-path.
The following links contain relevant documentation relating to the load-path, which may be helpful in that regard:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/LoadPath
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Lisp-Libraries.html