Debugging with gdb

The gnu Source-Level Debugger Tenth Edition, for gdb version 7.3.50.20111119 (GDB)

Richard Stallman, Roland Pesch, Stan Shebs, et al.

(Send bugs and comments on gdb to [Link] Debugging with gdb TEXinfo 2011-02-14.11

Published by the Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA ISBN 978-0-9831592-3-0 Copyright c 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being Free Software and Free Software Needs Free Documentation, with the Front-Cover Texts being A GNU Manual, and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. (a) The FSFs Back-Cover Text is: You are free to copy and modify this GNU Manual. Buying copies from GNU Press supports the FSF in developing GNU and promoting software freedom.

Table of Contents
Summary of gdb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Free Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Free Software Needs Free Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Contributors to gdb. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1 2

A Sample gdb Session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Getting In and Out of gdb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

2.1 Invoking gdb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Choosing Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2 Choosing Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.3 What gdb Does During Startup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Quitting gdb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Shell Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Logging Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 12 13 15 16 16 17

gdb Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.1 3.2 3.3 Command Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Command Completion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Getting Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Running Programs Under gdb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

4.1 Compiling for Debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Starting your Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Your Programs Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Your Programs Environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Your Programs Working Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6 Your Programs Input and Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7 Debugging an Already-running Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.8 Killing the Child Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.9 Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.10 Debugging Programs with Multiple Threads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.11 Debugging Forks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.12 Setting a Bookmark to Return to Later. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.12.1 A Non-obvious Benefit of Using Checkpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 26 28 29 30 30 31 32 32 35 38 40 42

ii

Debugging with gdb

Stopping and Continuing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

5.1 Breakpoints, Watchpoints, and Catchpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.1 Setting Breakpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.2 Setting Watchpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.3 Setting Catchpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.4 Deleting Breakpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.5 Disabling Breakpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.6 Break Conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.7 Breakpoint Command Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.8 How to save breakpoints to a file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.9 Cannot insert breakpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.10 Breakpoint address adjusted... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Continuing and Stepping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Skipping Over Functions and Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Stopping and Starting Multi-thread Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.1 All-Stop Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.2 Non-Stop Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.3 Background Execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.4 Thread-Specific Breakpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.5 Interrupted System Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.6 Observer Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 44 49 52 55 56 57 59 60 60 60 61 64 66 68 68 69 71 72 72 73

6 7 8

Running programs backward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Recording Inferiors Execution and Replaying It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Examining the Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Stack Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Backtraces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Selecting a Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Information About a Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 82 84 85

Examining Source Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

9.1 9.2 9.3 Printing Source Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Specifying a Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Editing Source Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.1 Choosing your Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4 Searching Source Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.5 Specifying Source Directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.6 Source and Machine Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 88 89 90 90 90 93

iii

10

Examining Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

10.1 Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 10.2 Ambiguous Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 10.3 Program Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 10.4 Artificial Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 10.5 Output Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 10.6 Examining Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 10.7 Automatic Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 10.8 Print Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 10.9 Pretty Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 10.9.1 Pretty-Printer Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 10.9.2 Pretty-Printer Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 10.9.3 Pretty-Printer Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 10.10 Value History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 10.11 Convenience Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 10.12 Registers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 10.13 Floating Point Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 10.14 Vector Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 10.15 Operating System Auxiliary Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 10.16 Memory Region Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 10.16.1 Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 [Link] Memory Access Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 [Link] Memory Access Size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 [Link] Data Cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 10.16.2 Memory Access Checking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 10.17 Copy Between Memory and a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 10.18 How to Produce a Core File from Your Program . . . . . . . . . . . 124 10.19 Character Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 10.20 Caching Data of Remote Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 10.21 Search Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

11

Debugging Optimized Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Inline Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Tail Call Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

11.1 11.2

12 13

C Preprocessor Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Tracepoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

139 140 142 143 143 143 144 146 147

13.1 Commands to Set Tracepoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.1 Create and Delete Tracepoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.2 Enable and Disable Tracepoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.3 Tracepoint Passcounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.4 Tracepoint Conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.5 Trace State Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.6 Tracepoint Action Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.7 Listing Tracepoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.8 Listing Static Tracepoint Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

iv

Debugging with gdb 13.1.9 Starting and Stopping Trace Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.1.10 Tracepoint Restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2 Using the Collected Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.1 tfind n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.2 tdump. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.2.3 save tracepoints filename . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.3 Convenience Variables for Tracepoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.4 Using Trace Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 149 150 150 152 153 153 154

14

Debugging Programs That Use Overlays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

How Overlays Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overlay Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Automatic Overlay Debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overlay Sample Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 156 158 159

14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4

15

Using gdb with Different Languages . . . . . . 161

161 161 162 162 162 163 163 164 165 165 166 167 168 169 169 169 170 171 171 171 171 172 172 172 173 173 173 173 173 173

15.1 Switching Between Source Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.1.1 List of Filename Extensions and Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.1.2 Setting the Working Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.1.3 Having gdb Infer the Source Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.2 Displaying the Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.3 Type and Range Checking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.3.1 An Overview of Type Checking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.3.2 An Overview of Range Checking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.4 Supported Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.4.1 C and C++ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] C and C++ Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] C and C++ Constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] C++ Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] C and C++ Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] C and C++ Type and Range Checks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] gdb and C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] gdb Features for C++ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Decimal Floating Point format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.4.2 D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.4.3 Objective-C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Method Names in Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] The Print Command With Objective-C . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.4.4 OpenCL C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] OpenCL C Datatypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] OpenCL C Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] OpenCL C Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.4.5 Fortran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Fortran Operators and Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Fortran Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Special Fortran Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

v 15.4.6 Pascal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.4.7 Modula-2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Built-in Functions and Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Modula-2 Types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Modula-2 Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Deviations from Standard Modula-2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Modula-2 Type and Range Checks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] The Scope Operators :: and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] gdb and Modula-2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.4.8 Ada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Omissions from Ada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Additions to Ada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Stopping at the Very Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Extensions for Ada Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Tasking Support when Debugging Core Files . . . . . . [Link] Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile ........................................................ [Link] Known Peculiarities of Ada Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.5 Unsupported Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 174 174 175 176 177 179 179 179 179 180 180 180 181 182 183 183 186 187 187 188

16 17

Examining the Symbol Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Altering Execution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Assignment to Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Continuing at a Different Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Giving your Program a Signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Returning from a Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Calling Program Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Patching Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 196 197 197 198 199

17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 17.5 17.6

18

gdb Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Commands to Specify Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Debugging Information in Separate Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index Files Speed Up gdb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Errors Reading Symbol Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GDB Data Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 209 212 213 214

18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5

19

Specifying a Debugging Target . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Active Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Commands for Managing Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Choosing Target Byte Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

19.1 19.2 19.3

vi

Debugging with gdb

20

Debugging Remote Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

219 221 221 221 222 222 223 223 224 224 224 226 230 231 232 233

20.1 Connecting to a Remote Target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.2 Sending files to a remote system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.3 Using the gdbserver Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.3.1 Running gdbserver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Attaching to a Running Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Multi-Process Mode for gdbserver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] TCP port allocation lifecycle of gdbserver . . . . . . . . [Link] Other Command-Line Arguments for gdbserver . . . 20.3.2 Connecting to gdbserver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.3.3 Monitor Commands for gdbserver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.3.4 Tracepoints support in gdbserver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.4 Remote Configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.5 Implementing a Remote Stub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.5.1 What the Stub Can Do for You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.5.2 What You Must Do for the Stub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.5.3 Putting it All Together. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

21

Configuration-Specific Information . . . . . . . . 235

235 235 235 235 237 239 240 241 241 242 244 245 245 245 246 246 247 247 247 249 250 250 251 253 255 256 256 257 257

21.1 Native . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1.1 HP-UX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1.2 BSD libkvm Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1.3 SVR4 Process Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1.4 Features for Debugging djgpp Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1.5 Features for Debugging MS Windows PE Executables . . [Link] Support for DLLs without Debugging Symbols. . . . . [Link] DLL Name Prefixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Working with Minimal Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1.6 Commands Specific to gnu Hurd Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1.7 QNX Neutrino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.1.8 Darwin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.2 Embedded Operating Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.2.1 Using gdb with VxWorks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Connecting to VxWorks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] VxWorks Download . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Running Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3 Embedded Processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.1 ARM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.2 Renesas M32R/D and M32R/SDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.3 M68k . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.4 MicroBlaze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.5 MIPS Embedded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.6 OpenRISC 1000. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.7 PowerPC Embedded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.8 HP PA Embedded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.9 Tsqware Sparclet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Setting File to Debug . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Connecting to Sparclet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

vii [Link] Sparclet Download . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Running and Debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.10 Fujitsu Sparclite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.11 Zilog Z8000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.12 Atmel AVR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.13 CRIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.3.14 Renesas Super-H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.4 Architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.4.1 x86 Architecture-specific Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.4.2 A29K . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.4.3 Alpha. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.4.4 MIPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.4.5 HPPA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.4.6 Cell Broadband Engine SPU architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.4.7 PowerPC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 258 258 258 259 259 259 260 260 260 260 260 262 262 263

22

Controlling gdb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Prompt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Command Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Command History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Screen Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Configuring the Current ABI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Optional Warnings and Messages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Optional Messages about Internal Happenings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Other Miscellaneous Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 274

22.1 22.2 22.3 22.4 22.5 22.6 22.7 22.8 22.9

23

Extending gdb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

275 275 277 278 279 281 281 282 282 285 286 290 294 295 296 298 299 301 302 305

23.1 Canned Sequences of Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.1.1 User-defined Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.1.2 User-defined Command Hooks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.1.3 Command Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.1.4 Commands for Controlled Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.2 Scripting gdb using Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.2.1 Python Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.2.2 Python API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Basic Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Exception Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Values From Inferior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Types In Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Pretty Printing API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Selecting Pretty-Printers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Writing a Pretty-Printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Inferiors In Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Events In Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Threads In Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Commands In Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Parameters In Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

viii

Debugging with gdb [Link] Writing new convenience functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Program Spaces In Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Objfiles In Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Accessing inferior stack frames from Python. . . . . . [Link] Accessing frame blocks from Python. . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Python representation of Symbols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Symbol table representation in Python. . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Manipulating breakpoints using Python . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Python representation of lazy strings. . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.2.3 Auto-loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] The [Link] file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] The .debug_gdb_scripts section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] Which flavor to choose? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.2.4 Python modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] [Link]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] [Link] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Link] [Link] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.3 Creating new spellings of existing commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 308 309 309 312 313 316 317 320 320 321 321 322 323 323 323 324 325

24 25

Command Interpreters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 gdb Text User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

TUI Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TUI Key Bindings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TUI Single Key Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TUI-specific Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TUI Configuration Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 330 331 331 333

25.1 25.2 25.3 25.4 25.5

26 27

Using gdb under gnu Emacs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335 The gdb/mi Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
337 337 337 338 339 339 340 340 341 342 343 343 343 344 344 346

Function and Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notation and Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.3 gdb/mi General Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.3.1 Context management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.3.2 Asynchronous command execution and non-stop mode . . 27.3.3 Thread groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.4 gdb/mi Command Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.4.1 gdb/mi Input Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.4.2 gdb/mi Output Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.5 gdb/mi Compatibility with CLI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.6 gdb/mi Development and Front Ends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.7 gdb/mi Output Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.7.1 gdb/mi Result Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.7.2 gdb/mi Stream Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.7.3 gdb/mi Async Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.7.4 gdb/mi Frame Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ix 27.7.5 gdb/mi Thread Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.7.6 gdb/mi Ada Exception Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.8 Simple Examples of gdb/mi Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.9 gdb/mi Command Description Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.10 gdb/mi Breakpoint Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.11 gdb/mi Program Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.12 gdb/mi Thread Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.13 gdb/mi Ada Tasking Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.14 gdb/mi Program Execution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.15 gdb/mi Stack Manipulation Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.16 gdb/mi Variable Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.17 gdb/mi Data Manipulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.18 gdb/mi Tracepoint Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.19 gdb/mi Symbol Query Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.20 gdb/mi File Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.21 gdb/mi Target Manipulation Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.22 gdb/mi File Transfer Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.23 Miscellaneous gdb/mi Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 347 347 348 349 357 360 362 363 369 374 385 393 396 397 399 402 403

28

gdb Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

What is an Annotation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Server Prefix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Annotation for gdb Input. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Invalidation Notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Running the Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Displaying Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411 412 412 413 413 413 414

28.1 28.2 28.3 28.4 28.5 28.6 28.7

29

JIT Compilation Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

JIT Declarations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415 Registering Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416 Unregistering Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416

29.1 29.2 29.3

30

Reporting Bugs in gdb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

Have You Found a Bug? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417 How to Report Bugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

30.1 30.2

Debugging with gdb

31

Command Line Editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

421 421 421 422 422 423 423 424 424 430 431 434 434 434 436 437 438 438 439 439 441

31.1 Introduction to Line Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.2 Readline Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.2.1 Readline Bare Essentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.2.2 Readline Movement Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.2.3 Readline Killing Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.2.4 Readline Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.2.5 Searching for Commands in the History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.3 Readline Init File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.3.1 Readline Init File Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.3.2 Conditional Init Constructs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.3.3 Sample Init File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.4 Bindable Readline Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.4.1 Commands For Moving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.4.2 Commands For Manipulating The History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.4.3 Commands For Changing Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.4.4 Killing And Yanking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.4.5 Specifying Numeric Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.4.6 Letting Readline Type For You. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.4.7 Keyboard Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.4.8 Some Miscellaneous Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.5 Readline vi Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

32

Using History Interactively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

443 443 444 444

32.1 History Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.1.1 Event Designators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.1.2 Word Designators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.1.3 Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Appendix A Appendix B Appendix C

C.1 C.2 C.3 C.4 C.5 C.6

In Memoriam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447 Formatting Documentation . . . . . 449 Installing gdb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451

451 452 453 454 455 456

Requirements for Building gdb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Invoking the gdb configure Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Compiling gdb in Another Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Specifying Names for Hosts and Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . configure Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . System-wide configuration and settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Appendix D

Maintenance Commands. . . . . . . . 457

xi

Appendix E

gdb Remote Serial Protocol . . . . 465

465 466 476 477 493 493 493 493 493 494 500 500 502 502 503 504 505 505 505 506 507 507 507 508 508 508 509 510 510 510 511 511 512 512 513 513 514 514 514 514 514 515 515 515 515 516 516

E.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.2 Packets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.3 Stop Reply Packets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.4 General Query Packets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.5 Architecture-Specific Protocol Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.5.1 ARM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.5.1.1 Breakpoint Kinds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.5.2 MIPS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.5.2.1 Register Packet Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.6 Tracepoint Packets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.6.1 Relocate instruction reply packet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.7 Host I/O Packets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.8 Interrupts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.9 Notification Packets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.10 Remote Protocol Support for Non-Stop Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.11 Packet Acknowledgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.12 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.13 File-I/O Remote Protocol Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.13.1 File-I/O Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.13.2 Protocol Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.13.3 The F Request Packet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.13.4 The F Reply Packet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.13.5 The Ctrl-C Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.13.6 Console I/O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.13.7 List of Supported Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . open . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . close . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . read . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . write . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lseek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . rename . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . unlink . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . stat/fstat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . gettimeofday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . isatty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.13.8 Protocol-specific Representation of Datatypes . . . . . . . . . . Integral Datatypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pointer Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Memory Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . struct stat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . struct timeval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.13.9 Constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Open Flags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . mode t Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Errno Values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lseek Flags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xii

Debugging with gdb Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.13.10 File-I/O Examples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.14 Library List Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.15 Memory Map Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.16 Thread List Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E.17 Traceframe Info Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516 516 517 518 519 519

Appendix F The GDB Agent Expression Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521

F.1 F.2 F.3 F.4 F.5 General Bytecode Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bytecode Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Using Agent Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Varying Target Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521 523 528 528 529

Appendix G

Target Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533

533 533 534 534 535 535 535 535 536 537 538 538 539 539 539 540 540

G.1 Retrieving Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.2 Target Description Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.2.1 Inclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.2.2 Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.2.3 OS ABI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.2.4 Compatible Architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.2.5 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.2.6 Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.2.7 Registers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.3 Predefined Target Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.4 Standard Target Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.4.1 ARM Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.4.2 i386 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.4.3 MIPS Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.4.4 M68K Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.4.5 PowerPC Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.4.6 TMS320C6x Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Appendix H Operating System Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541

H.1 Process list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541

Appendix I Appendix J

Trace File Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543 .gdb_index section format. . . . . . . 545

Appendix K GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547

xiii

Appendix L GNU Free Documentation License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567

Summary of gdb

Summary of gdb
The purpose of a debugger such as gdb is to allow you to see what is going on inside another program while it executesor what another program was doing at the moment it crashed. gdb can do four main kinds of things (plus other things in support of these) to help you catch bugs in the act: Start your program, specifying anything that might affect its behavior. Make your program stop on specified conditions. Examine what has happened, when your program has stopped. Change things in your program, so you can experiment with correcting the effects of one bug and go on to learn about another.

You can use gdb to debug programs written in C and C++. For more information, see Section 15.4 [Supported Languages], page 165. For more information, see Section 15.4.1 [C and C++], page 165. Support for D is partial. For information on D, see Section 15.4.2 [D], page 171. Support for Modula-2 is partial. [Modula-2], page 174. For information on Modula-2, see Section 15.4.7

Support for OpenCL C is partial. For information on OpenCL C, see Section 15.4.4 [OpenCL C], page 172. Debugging Pascal programs which use sets, subranges, file variables, or nested functions does not currently work. gdb does not support entering expressions, printing values, or similar features using Pascal syntax. gdb can be used to debug programs written in Fortran, although it may be necessary to refer to some variables with a trailing underscore. gdb can be used to debug programs written in Objective-C, using either the Apple/NeXT or the GNU Objective-C runtime.

Free Software
gdb is free software, protected by the gnu General Public License (GPL). The GPL gives you the freedom to copy or adapt a licensed programbut every person getting a copy also gets with it the freedom to modify that copy (which means that they must get access to the source code), and the freedom to distribute further copies. Typical software companies use copyrights to limit your freedoms; the Free Software Foundation uses the GPL to preserve these freedoms. Fundamentally, the General Public License is a license which says that you have these freedoms and that you cannot take these freedoms away from anyone else.

Free Software Needs Free Documentation

The biggest deficiency in the free software community today is not in the softwareit is the lack of good free documentation that we can include with the free software. Many of our most important programs do not come with free reference manuals and free introductory

Debugging with gdb

texts. Documentation is an essential part of any software package; when an important free software package does not come with a free manual and a free tutorial, that is a major gap. We have many such gaps today. Consider Perl, for instance. The tutorial manuals that people normally use are non-free. How did this come about? Because the authors of those manuals published them with restrictive termsno copying, no modification, source files not availablewhich exclude them from the free software world. That wasnt the first time this sort of thing happened, and it was far from the last. Many times we have heard a GNU user eagerly describe a manual that he is writing, his intended contribution to the community, only to learn that he had ruined everything by signing a publication contract to make it non-free. Free documentation, like free software, is a matter of freedom, not price. The problem with the non-free manual is not that publishers charge a price for printed copiesthat in itself is fine. (The Free Software Foundation sells printed copies of manuals, too.) The problem is the restrictions on the use of the manual. Free manuals are available in source code form, and give you permission to copy and modify. Non-free manuals do not allow this. The criteria of freedom for a free manual are roughly the same as for free software. Redistribution (including the normal kinds of commercial redistribution) must be permitted, so that the manual can accompany every copy of the program, both on-line and on paper. Permission for modification of the technical content is crucial too. When people modify the software, adding or changing features, if they are conscientious they will change the manual tooso they can provide accurate and clear documentation for the modified program. A manual that leaves you no choice but to write a new manual to document a changed version of the program is not really available to our community. Some kinds of limits on the way modification is handled are acceptable. For example, requirements to preserve the original authors copyright notice, the distribution terms, or the list of authors, are ok. It is also no problem to require modified versions to include notice that they were modified. Even entire sections that may not be deleted or changed are acceptable, as long as they deal with nontechnical topics (like this one). These kinds of restrictions are acceptable because they dont obstruct the communitys normal use of the manual. However, it must be possible to modify all the technical content of the manual, and then distribute the result in all the usual media, through all the usual channels. Otherwise, the restrictions obstruct the use of the manual, it is not free, and we need another manual to replace it. Please spread the word about this issue. Our community continues to lose manuals to proprietary publishing. If we spread the word that free software needs free reference manuals and free tutorials, perhaps the next person who wants to contribute by writing documentation will realize, before it is too late, that only free manuals contribute to the free software community. If you are writing documentation, please insist on publishing it under the GNU Free Documentation License or another free documentation license. Remember that this decision requires your approvalyou dont have to let the publisher decide. Some commercial publishers will use a free license if you insist, but they will not propose the option; it is up

Summary of gdb

to you to raise the issue and say firmly that this is what you want. If the publisher you are dealing with refuses, please try other publishers. If youre not sure whether a proposed license is free, write to licensing@[Link]. You can encourage commercial publishers to sell more free, copylefted manuals and tutorials by buying them, and particularly by buying copies from the publishers that paid for their writing or for major improvements. Meanwhile, try to avoid buying non-free documentation at all. Check the distribution terms of a manual before you buy it, and insist that whoever seeks your business must respect your freedom. Check the history of the book, and try to reward the publishers that have paid or pay the authors to work on it. The Free Software Foundation maintains a list of free documentation published by other publishers, at [Link]

Contributors to gdb
Richard Stallman was the original author of gdb, and of many other gnu programs. Many others have contributed to its development. This section attempts to credit major contributors. One of the virtues of free software is that everyone is free to contribute to it; with regret, we cannot actually acknowledge everyone here. The file ChangeLog in the gdb distribution approximates a blow-by-blow account. Changes much prior to version 2.0 are lost in the mists of time. Plea: Additions to this section are particularly welcome. If you or your friends (or enemies, to be evenhanded) have been unfairly omitted from this list, we would like to add your names! So that they may not regard their many labors as thankless, we particularly thank those who shepherded gdb through major releases: Andrew Cagney (releases 6.3, 6.2, 6.1, 6.0, 5.3, 5.2, 5.1 and 5.0); Jim Blandy (release 4.18); Jason Molenda (release 4.17); Stan Shebs (release 4.14); Fred Fish (releases 4.16, 4.15, 4.13, 4.12, 4.11, 4.10, and 4.9); Stu Grossman and John Gilmore (releases 4.8, 4.7, 4.6, 4.5, and 4.4); John Gilmore (releases 4.3, 4.2, 4.1, 4.0, and 3.9); Jim Kingdon (releases 3.5, 3.4, and 3.3); and Randy Smith (releases 3.2, 3.1, and 3.0). Richard Stallman, assisted at various times by Peter TerMaat, Chris Hanson, and Richard Mlynarik, handled releases through 2.8. Michael Tiemann is the author of most of the gnu C++ support in gdb, with significant additional contributions from Per Bothner and Daniel Berlin. James Clark wrote the gnu C++ demangler. Early work on C++ was by Peter TerMaat (who also did much general update work leading to release 3.0). gdb uses the BFD subroutine library to examine multiple object-file formats; BFD was a joint project of David V. Henkel-Wallace, Rich Pixley, Steve Chamberlain, and John Gilmore. David Johnson wrote the original COFF support; Pace Willison did the original support for encapsulated COFF. Brent Benson of Harris Computer Systems contributed DWARF 2 support. Adam de Boor and Bradley Davis contributed the ISI Optimum V support. Per Bothner, Noboyuki Hikichi, and Alessandro Forin contributed MIPS support. Jean-Daniel Fekete contributed Sun 386i support. Chris Hanson improved the HP9000 support. Noboyuki

Debugging with gdb

Hikichi and Tomoyuki Hasei contributed Sony/News OS 3 support. David Johnson contributed Encore Umax support. Jyrki Kuoppala contributed Altos 3068 support. Jeff Law contributed HP PA and SOM support. Keith Packard contributed NS32K support. Doug Rabson contributed Acorn Risc Machine support. Bob Rusk contributed Harris Nighthawk CX-UX support. Chris Smith contributed Convex support (and Fortran debugging). Jonathan Stone contributed Pyramid support. Michael Tiemann contributed SPARC support. Tim Tucker contributed support for the Gould NP1 and Gould Powernode. Pace Willison contributed Intel 386 support. Jay Vosburgh contributed Symmetry support. Marko Mlinar contributed OpenRISC 1000 support. Andreas Schwab contributed M68K gnu/Linux support. Rich Schaefer and Peter Schauer helped with support of SunOS shared libraries. Jay Fenlason and Roland McGrath ensured that gdb and GAS agree about several machine instruction sets. Patrick Duval, Ted Goldstein, Vikram Koka and Glenn Engel helped develop remote debugging. Intel Corporation, Wind River Systems, AMD, and ARM contributed remote debugging modules for the i960, VxWorks, A29K UDI, and RDI targets, respectively. Brian Fox is the author of the readline libraries providing command-line editing and command history. Andrew Beers of SUNY Buffalo wrote the language-switching code, the Modula-2 support, and contributed the Languages chapter of this manual. Fred Fish wrote most of the support for Unix System Vr4. He also enhanced the command-completion support to cover C++ overloaded symbols. Hitachi America (now Renesas America), Ltd. sponsored the support for H8/300, H8/500, and Super-H processors. NEC sponsored the support for the v850, Vr4xxx, and Vr5xxx processors. Mitsubishi (now Renesas) sponsored the support for D10V, D30V, and M32R/D processors. Toshiba sponsored the support for the TX39 Mips processor. Matsushita sponsored the support for the MN10200 and MN10300 processors. Fujitsu sponsored the support for SPARClite and FR30 processors. Kung Hsu, Jeff Law, and Rick Sladkey added support for hardware watchpoints. Michael Snyder added support for tracepoints. Stu Grossman wrote gdbserver. Jim Kingdon, Peter Schauer, Ian Taylor, and Stu Grossman made nearly innumerable bug fixes and cleanups throughout gdb. The following people at the Hewlett-Packard Company contributed support for the PARISC 2.0 architecture, HP-UX 10.20, 10.30, and 11.0 (narrow mode), HPs implementation of kernel threads, HPs aC++ compiler, and the Text User Interface (nee Terminal User Interface): Ben Krepp, Richard Title, John Bishop, Susan Macchia, Kathy Mann, Satish Pai, India Paul, Steve Rehrauer, and Elena Zannoni. Kim Haase provided HP-specific information in this manual. DJ Delorie ported gdb to MS-DOS, for the DJGPP project. Robert Hoehne made significant contributions to the DJGPP port.

Summary of gdb

Cygnus Solutions has sponsored gdb maintenance and much of its development since 1991. Cygnus engineers who have worked on gdb fulltime include Mark Alexander, Jim Blandy, Per Bothner, Kevin Buettner, Edith Epstein, Chris Faylor, Fred Fish, Martin Hunt, Jim Ingham, John Gilmore, Stu Grossman, Kung Hsu, Jim Kingdon, John Metzler, Fernando Nasser, Geoffrey Noer, Dawn Perchik, Rich Pixley, Zdenek Radouch, Keith Seitz, Stan Shebs, David Taylor, and Elena Zannoni. In addition, Dave Brolley, Ian Carmichael, Steve Chamberlain, Nick Clifton, JT Conklin, Stan Cox, DJ Delorie, Ulrich Drepper, Frank Eigler, Doug Evans, Sean Fagan, David Henkel-Wallace, Richard Henderson, Jeff Holcomb, Jeff Law, Jim Lemke, Tom Lord, Bob Manson, Michael Meissner, Jason Merrill, Catherine Moore, Drew Moseley, Ken Raeburn, Gavin Romig-Koch, Rob Savoye, Jamie Smith, Mike Stump, Ian Taylor, Angela Thomas, Michael Tiemann, Tom Tromey, Ron Unrau, Jim Wilson, and David Zuhn have made contributions both large and small. Andrew Cagney, Fernando Nasser, and Elena Zannoni, while working for Cygnus Solutions, implemented the original gdb/mi interface. Jim Blandy added support for preprocessor macros, while working for Red Hat. Andrew Cagney designed gdbs architecture vector. Many people including Andrew Cagney, Stephane Carrez, Randolph Chung, Nick Duffek, Richard Henderson, Mark Kettenis, Grace Sainsbury, Kei Sakamoto, Yoshinori Sato, Michael Snyder, Andreas Schwab, Jason Thorpe, Corinna Vinschen, Ulrich Weigand, and Elena Zannoni, helped with the migration of old architectures to this new framework. Andrew Cagney completely re-designed and re-implemented gdbs unwinder framework, this consisting of a fresh new design featuring frame IDs, independent frame sniffers, and the sentinel frame. Mark Kettenis implemented the dwarf 2 unwinder, Jeff Johnston the libunwind unwinder, and Andrew Cagney the dummy, sentinel, tramp, and trad unwinders. The architecture-specific changes, each involving a complete rewrite of the architectures frame code, were carried out by Jim Blandy, Joel Brobecker, Kevin Buettner, Andrew Cagney, Stephane Carrez, Randolph Chung, Orjan Friberg, Richard Henderson, Daniel Jacobowitz, Jeff Johnston, Mark Kettenis, Theodore A. Roth, Kei Sakamoto, Yoshinori Sato, Michael Snyder, Corinna Vinschen, and Ulrich Weigand. Christian Zankel, Ross Morley, Bob Wilson, and Maxim Grigoriev from Tensilica, Inc. contributed support for Xtensa processors. Others who have worked on the Xtensa port of gdb in the past include Steve Tjiang, John Newlin, and Scott Foehner. Michael Eager and staff of Xilinx, Inc., contributed support for the Xilinx MicroBlaze architecture.

Chapter 1: A Sample gdb Session

1 A Sample gdb Session

You can use this manual at your leisure to read all about gdb. However, a handful of commands are enough to get started using the debugger. This chapter illustrates those commands. In this sample session, we emphasize user input like this: input, to make it easier to pick out from the surrounding output. One of the preliminary versions of gnu m4 (a generic macro processor) exhibits the following bug: sometimes, when we change its quote strings from the default, the commands used to capture one macro definition within another stop working. In the following short m4 session, we define a macro foo which expands to 0000; we then use the m4 built-in defn to define bar as the same thing. However, when we change the open quote string to <QUOTE> and the close quote string to <UNQUOTE>, the same procedure fails to define a new synonym baz:
$ cd gnu/m4 $ ./m4 define(foo,0000) foo 0000 define(bar,defn(foo)) bar 0000 changequote(<QUOTE>,<UNQUOTE>) define(baz,defn(<QUOTE>foo<UNQUOTE>)) baz Ctrl-d m4: End of input: 0: fatal error: EOF in string

Let us use gdb to try to see what is going on.

$ gdb m4 gdb is free software and you are welcome to distribute copies of it under certain conditions; type "show copying" to see the conditions. There is absolutely no warranty for gdb; type "show warranty" for details. gdb 7.3.50.20111119, Copyright 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc... (gdb)

gdb reads only enough symbol data to know where to find the rest when needed; as a result, the first prompt comes up very quickly. We now tell gdb to use a narrower display width than usual, so that examples fit in this manual.
(gdb) set width 70

We need to see how the m4 built-in changequote works. Having looked at the source, we know the relevant subroutine is m4_changequote, so we set a breakpoint there with the gdb break command.
(gdb) break m4 changequote Breakpoint 1 at 0x62f4: file builtin.c, line 879.

Using the run command, we start m4 running under gdb control; as long as control does not reach the m4_changequote subroutine, the program runs as usual:

Debugging with gdb

(gdb) run Starting program: /work/Editorial/gdb/gnu/m4/m4 define(foo,0000) foo 0000

To trigger the breakpoint, we call changequote. gdb suspends execution of m4, displaying information about the context where it stops.
changequote(<QUOTE>,<UNQUOTE>) Breakpoint 1, m4_changequote (argc=3, argv=0x33c70) at builtin.c:879 879 if (bad_argc(TOKEN_DATA_TEXT(argv[0]),argc,1,3))

Now we use the command n (next) to advance execution to the next line of the current function.
(gdb) n 882 : nil, set_quotes((argc >= 2) ? TOKEN_DATA_TEXT(argv[1])\

set_quotes looks like a promising subroutine. We can go into it by using the command s (step) instead of next. step goes to the next line to be executed in any subroutine, so it steps into set_quotes.
(gdb) s set_quotes (lq=0x34c78 "<QUOTE>", rq=0x34c88 "<UNQUOTE>") at input.c:530 530 if (lquote != def_lquote)

The display that shows the subroutine where m4 is now suspended (and its arguments) is called a stack frame display. It shows a summary of the stack. We can use the backtrace command (which can also be spelled bt), to see where we are in the stack as a whole: the backtrace command displays a stack frame for each active subroutine.
(gdb) bt #0 set_quotes (lq=0x34c78 "<QUOTE>", rq=0x34c88 "<UNQUOTE>") at input.c:530 #1 0x6344 in m4_changequote (argc=3, argv=0x33c70) at builtin.c:882 #2 0x8174 in expand_macro (sym=0x33320) at macro.c:242 #3 0x7a88 in expand_token (obs=0x0, t=209696, td=0xf7fffa30) at macro.c:71 #4 0x79dc in expand_input () at macro.c:40 #5 0x2930 in main (argc=0, argv=0xf7fffb20) at m4.c:195

We step through a few more lines to see what happens. The first two times, we can use s; the next two times we use n to avoid falling into the xstrdup subroutine.
(gdb) s 0x3b5c 532 if (rquote != def_rquote) (gdb) s 0x3b80 535 lquote = (lq == nil || *lq == \0) ? \ def_lquote : xstrdup(lq); (gdb) n 536 rquote = (rq == nil || *rq == \0) ? def_rquote\ : xstrdup(rq); (gdb) n 538 len_lquote = strlen(rquote);

Chapter 1: A Sample gdb Session

The last line displayed looks a little odd; we can examine the variables lquote and rquote to see if they are in fact the new left and right quotes we specified. We use the command p (print) to see their values.
(gdb) p lquote $1 = 0x35d40 "<QUOTE>" (gdb) p rquote $2 = 0x35d50 "<UNQUOTE>"

lquote and rquote are indeed the new left and right quotes. To look at some context, we can display ten lines of source surrounding the current line with the l (list) command.
(gdb) l 533 xfree(rquote); 534 535 lquote = (lq == nil || *lq == \0) ? def_lquote\ : xstrdup (lq); 536 rquote = (rq == nil || *rq == \0) ? def_rquote\ : xstrdup (rq); 537 538 len_lquote = strlen(rquote); 539 len_rquote = strlen(lquote); 540 } 541 542 void

Let us step past the two lines that set len_lquote and len_rquote, and then examine the values of those variables.
(gdb) n 539 len_rquote = strlen(lquote); (gdb) n 540 } (gdb) p len lquote $3 = 9 (gdb) p len rquote $4 = 7

That certainly looks wrong, assuming len_lquote and len_rquote are meant to be the lengths of lquote and rquote respectively. We can set them to better values using the p command, since it can print the value of any expressionand that expression can include subroutine calls and assignments.
(gdb) p len lquote=strlen(lquote) $5 = 7 (gdb) p len rquote=strlen(rquote) $6 = 9

Is that enough to fix the problem of using the new quotes with the m4 built-in defn? We can allow m4 to continue executing with the c (continue) command, and then try the example that caused trouble initially:
(gdb) c Continuing. define(baz,defn(<QUOTE>foo<UNQUOTE>)) baz 0000

10

Debugging with gdb

Success! The new quotes now work just as well as the default ones. The problem seems to have been just the two typos defining the wrong lengths. We allow m4 exit by giving it an EOF as input:
Ctrl-d Program exited normally.

The message Program exited normally. is from gdb; it indicates m4 has finished executing. We can end our gdb session with the gdb quit command.
(gdb) quit

Chapter 2: Getting In and Out of gdb

11

2 Getting In and Out of gdb

This chapter discusses how to start gdb, and how to get out of it. The essentials are: type gdb to start gdb. type quit or Ctrl-d to exit.

2.1 Invoking gdb

Invoke gdb by running the program gdb. Once started, gdb reads commands from the terminal until you tell it to exit. You can also run gdb with a variety of arguments and options, to specify more of your debugging environment at the outset. The command-line options described here are designed to cover a variety of situations; in some environments, some of these options may effectively be unavailable. The most usual way to start gdb is with one argument, specifying an executable program:
gdb program

You can also start with both an executable program and a core file specified:
gdb program core

You can, instead, specify a process ID as a second argument, if you want to debug a running process:
gdb program 1234

would attach gdb to process 1234 (unless you also have a file named 1234; gdb does check for a core file first). Taking advantage of the second command-line argument requires a fairly complete operating system; when you use gdb as a remote debugger attached to a bare board, there may not be any notion of process, and there is often no way to get a core dump. gdb will warn you if it is unable to attach or to read core dumps. You can optionally have gdb pass any arguments after the executable file to the inferior using --args. This option stops option processing.
gdb --args gcc -O2 -c foo.c

This will cause gdb to debug gcc, and to set gccs command-line arguments (see Section 4.3 [Arguments], page 28) to -O2 -c foo.c. You can run gdb without printing the front material, which describes gdbs non-warranty, by specifying -silent:
gdb -silent

You can further control how gdb starts up by using command-line options. gdb itself can remind you of the options available. Type
gdb -help

to display all available options and briefly describe their use (gdb -h is a shorter equivalent). All options and command line arguments you give are processed in sequential order. The order makes a difference when the -x option is used.

12

Debugging with gdb

2.1.1 Choosing Files

When gdb starts, it reads any arguments other than options as specifying an executable file and core file (or process ID). This is the same as if the arguments were specified by the -se and -c (or -p) options respectively. (gdb reads the first argument that does not have an associated option flag as equivalent to the -se option followed by that argument; and the second argument that does not have an associated option flag, if any, as equivalent to the -c/-p option followed by that argument.) If the second argument begins with a decimal digit, gdb will first attempt to attach to it as a process, and if that fails, attempt to open it as a corefile. If you have a corefile whose name begins with a digit, you can prevent gdb from treating it as a pid by prefixing it with ./, e.g. ./12345. If gdb has not been configured to included core file support, such as for most embedded targets, then it will complain about a second argument and ignore it. Many options have both long and short forms; both are shown in the following list. gdb also recognizes the long forms if you truncate them, so long as enough of the option is present to be unambiguous. (If you prefer, you can flag option arguments with -- rather than -, though we illustrate the more usual convention.) -symbols file -s file Read symbol table from file file. -exec file -e file Use file file as the executable file to execute when appropriate, and for examining pure data in conjunction with a core dump. -se file Read symbol table from file file and use it as the executable file. -core file -c file Use file file as a core dump to examine. -pid number -p number Connect to process ID number, as with the attach command. -command file -x file Execute commands from file file. The contents of this file is evaluated exactly as the source command would. See Section 23.1.3 [Command files], page 278. -eval-command command -ex command Execute a single gdb command. This option may be used multiple times to call multiple commands. It may also be interleaved with -command as required.
gdb -ex target sim -ex load \ -x setbreakpoints -ex run [Link]

-directory directory -d directory Add directory to the path to search for source and script files. -r -readnow Read each symbol files entire symbol table immediately, rather than the default, which is to read it incrementally as it is needed. This makes startup slower, but makes future operations faster.

Chapter 2: Getting In and Out of gdb

13

2.1.2 Choosing Modes

You can run gdb in various alternative modesfor example, in batch mode or quiet mode. -nx -n Do not execute commands found in any initialization files. Normally, gdb executes the commands in these files after all the command options and arguments have been processed. See Section 23.1.3 [Command Files], page 278.

-quiet -silent -q -batch

Quiet. Do not print the introductory and copyright messages. These messages are also suppressed in batch mode. Run in batch mode. Exit with status 0 after processing all the command files specified with -x (and all commands from initialization files, if not inhibited with -n). Exit with nonzero status if an error occurs in executing the gdb commands in the command files. Batch mode also disables pagination, sets unlimited terminal width and height see Section 22.4 [Screen Size], page 267, and acts as if set confirm off were in effect (see Section 22.7 [Messages/Warnings], page 270). Batch mode may be useful for running gdb as a filter, for example to download and run a program on another computer; in order to make this more useful, the message
Program exited normally.

(which is ordinarily issued whenever a program running under gdb control terminates) is not issued when running in batch mode. -batch-silent Run in batch mode exactly like -batch, but totally silently. All gdb output to stdout is prevented (stderr is unaffected). This is much quieter than -silent and would be useless for an interactive session. This is particularly useful when using targets that give Loading section messages, for example. Note that targets that give their output via gdb, as opposed to writing directly to stdout, will also be made silent. -return-child-result The return code from gdb will be the return code from the child process (the process being debugged), with the following exceptions: gdb exits abnormally. E.g., due to an incorrect argument or an internal error. In this case the exit code is the same as it would have been without -return-child-result. The user quits with an explicit value. E.g., quit 1. The child process never runs, or is not allowed to terminate, in which case the exit code will be -1. This option is useful in conjunction with -batch or -batch-silent, when gdb is being used as a remote program loader or simulator interface.

14

Debugging with gdb

-nowindows -nw No windows. If gdb comes with a graphical user interface (GUI) built in, then this option tells gdb to only use the command-line interface. If no GUI is available, this option has no effect. -windows -w If gdb includes a GUI, then this option requires it to be used if possible.

-cd directory Run gdb using directory as its working directory, instead of the current directory. -data-directory directory Run gdb using directory as its data directory. The data directory is where gdb searches for its auxiliary files. See Section 18.5 [Data Files], page 214. -fullname -f gnu Emacs sets this option when it runs gdb as a subprocess. It tells gdb to output the full file name and line number in a standard, recognizable fashion each time a stack frame is displayed (which includes each time your program stops). This recognizable format looks like two \032 characters, followed by the file name, line number and character position separated by colons, and a newline. The Emacs-to-gdb interface program uses the two \032 characters as a signal to display the source code for the frame. -epoch The Epoch Emacs-gdb interface sets this option when it runs gdb as a subprocess. It tells gdb to modify its print routines so as to allow Epoch to display values of expressions in a separate window.

-annotate level This option sets the annotation level inside gdb. Its effect is identical to using set annotate level (see Chapter 28 [Annotations], page 411). The annotation level controls how much information gdb prints together with its prompt, values of expressions, source lines, and other types of output. Level 0 is the normal, level 1 is for use when gdb is run as a subprocess of gnu Emacs, level 3 is the maximum annotation suitable for programs that control gdb, and level 2 has been deprecated. The annotation mechanism has largely been superseded by gdb/mi (see Chapter 27 [GDB/MI], page 337). --args Change interpretation of command line so that arguments following the executable file are passed as command line arguments to the inferior. This option stops option processing.

-baud bps -b bps Set the line speed (baud rate or bits per second) of any serial interface used by gdb for remote debugging. -l timeout Set the timeout (in seconds) of any communication used by gdb for remote debugging.

Chapter 2: Getting In and Out of gdb

15

-tty device -t device Run using device for your programs standard input and output. -tui Activate the Text User Interface when starting. The Text User Interface manages several text windows on the terminal, showing source, assembly, registers and gdb command outputs (see Chapter 25 [gdb Text User Interface], page 329). Alternatively, the Text User Interface can be enabled by invoking the program gdbtui. Do not use this option if you run gdb from Emacs (see Chapter 26 [Using gdb under gnu Emacs], page 335).

-interpreter interp Use the interpreter interp for interface with the controlling program or device. This option is meant to be set by programs which communicate with gdb using it as a back end. See Chapter 24 [Command Interpreters], page 327. --interpreter=mi (or --interpreter=mi2) causes gdb to use the gdb/mi interface (see Chapter 27 [The gdb/mi Interface], page 337) included since gdb version 6.0. The previous gdb/mi interface, included in gdb version 5.3 and selected with --interpreter=mi1, is deprecated. Earlier gdb/mi interfaces are no longer supported. -write Open the executable and core files for both reading and writing. This is equivalent to the set write on command inside gdb (see Section 17.6 [Patching], page 199).

-statistics This option causes gdb to print statistics about time and memory usage after it completes each command and returns to the prompt. -version This option causes gdb to print its version number and no-warranty blurb, and exit.

2.1.3 What gdb Does During Startup

Heres the description of what gdb does during session startup: 1. Sets up the command interpreter as specified by the command line (see Section 2.1.2 [Mode Options], page 13). 2. Reads the system-wide init file (if --with-system-gdbinit was used when building gdb; see Section C.6 [System-wide configuration and settings], page 456) and executes all the commands in that file. 3. Reads the init file (if any) in your home directory1 and executes all the commands in that file. 4. Processes command line options and operands. 5. Reads and executes the commands from init file (if any) in the current working directory. This is only done if the current directory is different from your home directory. Thus, you can have more than one init file, one generic in your home directory, and another, specific to the program you are debugging, in the directory where you invoke gdb.
1

On DOS/Windows systems, the home directory is the one pointed to by the HOME environment variable.

16

Debugging with gdb

6. If the command line specified a program to debug, or a process to attach to, or a core file, gdb loads any auto-loaded scripts provided for the program or for its loaded shared libraries. See Section 23.2.3 [Auto-loading], page 320. If you wish to disable the auto-loading during startup, you must do something like the following:
$ gdb -ex "set auto-load-scripts off" -ex "file myprogram"

The following does not work because the auto-loading is turned off too late:
$ gdb -ex "set auto-load-scripts off" myprogram

7. Reads command files specified by the -x option. See Section 23.1.3 [Command Files], page 278, for more details about gdb command files. 8. Reads the command history recorded in the history file. See Section 22.3 [Command History], page 266, for more details about the command history and the files where gdb records it. Init files use the same syntax as command files (see Section 23.1.3 [Command Files], page 278) and are processed by gdb in the same way. The init file in your home directory can set options (such as set complaints) that affect subsequent processing of command line options and operands. Init files are not executed if you use the -nx option (see Section 2.1.2 [Choosing Modes], page 13). To display the list of init files loaded by gdb at startup, you can use gdb --help. The gdb init files are normally called .gdbinit. The DJGPP port of gdb uses the name [Link], due to the limitations of file names imposed by DOS filesystems. The Windows ports of gdb use the standard name, but if they find a [Link] file, they warn you about that and suggest to rename the file to the standard name.

2.2 Quitting gdb

quit [expression] q To exit gdb, use the quit command (abbreviated q), or type an end-of-file character (usually Ctrl-d). If you do not supply expression, gdb will terminate normally; otherwise it will terminate using the result of expression as the error code. An interrupt (often Ctrl-c) does not exit from gdb, but rather terminates the action of any gdb command that is in progress and returns to gdb command level. It is safe to type the interrupt character at any time because gdb does not allow it to take effect until a time when it is safe. If you have been using gdb to control an attached process or device, you can release it with the detach command (see Section 4.7 [Debugging an Already-running Process], page 31).

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.

Chapter 2: Getting In and Out of gdb

17

shell command-string !command-string Invoke a standard shell to execute command-string. Note that no space is needed between ! and 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, [Link] on MS-DOS, etc.). 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.

2.4 Logging Output

You may want to save the output of gdb commands to a file. There are several commands to control gdbs logging. set logging on Enable logging. set logging off Disable logging. set logging file file Change the name of the current logfile. The default logfile is [Link]. set logging overwrite [on|off] By default, gdb will append to the logfile. Set overwrite if you want set logging on to overwrite the logfile instead. set logging redirect [on|off] By default, gdb output will go to both the terminal and the logfile. Set redirect if you want output to go only to the log file. show logging Show the current values of the logging settings.

Chapter 3: gdb Commands

19

3 gdb Commands
You can abbreviate a gdb command to the first few letters of the command name, if that abbreviation is unambiguous; and you can repeat certain gdb commands by typing just RET. You can also use the TAB key to get gdb to fill out the rest of a word in a command (or to show you the alternatives available, if there is more than one possibility).

3.1 Command Syntax

A gdb command is a single line of input. There is no limit on how long it can be. It starts with a command name, which is followed by arguments whose meaning depends on the command name. For example, the command step accepts an argument which is the number of times to step, as in step 5. You can also use the step command with no arguments. Some commands do not allow any arguments. gdb command names may always be truncated if that abbreviation is unambiguous. Other possible command abbreviations are listed in the documentation for individual commands. In some cases, even ambiguous abbreviations are allowed; for example, s is specially defined as equivalent to step even though there are other commands whose names start with s. You can test abbreviations by using them as arguments to the help command. A blank line as input to gdb (typing just RET) means to repeat the previous command. Certain commands (for example, run) will not repeat this way; these are commands whose unintentional repetition might cause trouble and which you are unlikely to want to repeat. User-defined commands can disable this feature; see Section 23.1.1 [Define], page 275. The list and x commands, when you repeat them with RET, construct new arguments rather than repeating exactly as typed. This permits easy scanning of source or memory. gdb can also use RET in another way: to partition lengthy output, in a way similar to the common utility more (see Section 22.4 [Screen Size], page 267). Since it is easy to press one RET too many in this situation, gdb disables command repetition after any command that generates this sort of display. Any text from a # to the end of the line is a comment; it does nothing. This is useful mainly in command files (see Section 23.1.3 [Command Files], page 278). The Ctrl-o binding is useful for repeating a complex sequence of commands. This command accepts the current line, like RET, and then fetches the next line relative to the current line from the history for editing.

3.2 Command Completion

gdb can fill in the rest of a word in a command for you, if there is only one possibility; it can also show you what the valid possibilities are for the next word in a command, at any time. This works for gdb commands, gdb subcommands, and the names of symbols in your program. Press the TAB key whenever you want gdb to fill out the rest of a word. If there is only one possibility, gdb fills in the word, and waits for you to finish the command (or press RET to enter it). For example, if you type
(gdb) info bre TAB

gdb fills in the rest of the word breakpoints, since that is the only info subcommand beginning with bre:

20

Debugging with gdb

(gdb) info breakpoints

You can either press RET at this point, to run the info breakpoints command, or backspace and enter something else, if breakpoints does not look like the command you expected. (If you were sure you wanted info breakpoints in the first place, you might as well just type RET immediately after info bre, to exploit command abbreviations rather than command completion). If there is more than one possibility for the next word when you press TAB, gdb sounds a bell. You can either supply more characters and try again, or just press TAB a second time; gdb displays all the possible completions for that word. For example, you might want to set a breakpoint on a subroutine whose name begins with make_, but when you type b make_TAB gdb just sounds the bell. Typing TAB again displays all the function names in your program that begin with those characters, for example:
(gdb) b make_ TAB gdb sounds bell; press TAB again, to see: make_a_section_from_file make_environ make_abs_section make_function_type make_blockvector make_pointer_type make_cleanup make_reference_type make_command make_symbol_completion_list (gdb) b make_

After displaying the available possibilities, gdb copies your partial input (b make_ in the example) so you can finish the command. If you just want to see the list of alternatives in the first place, you can press M-? rather than pressing TAB twice. M-? means META ?. You can type this either by holding down a key designated as the META shift on your keyboard (if there is one) while typing ?, or as ESC followed by ?. Sometimes the string you need, while logically a word, may contain parentheses or other characters that gdb normally excludes from its notion of a word. To permit word completion to work in this situation, you may enclose words in (single quote marks) in gdb commands. The most likely situation where you might need this is in typing the name of a C++ function. This is because C++ allows function overloading (multiple definitions of the same function, distinguished by argument type). For example, when you want to set a breakpoint you may need to distinguish whether you mean the version of name that takes an int parameter, name(int), or the version that takes a float parameter, name(float). To use the word-completion facilities in this situation, type a single quote at the beginning of the function name. This alerts gdb that it may need to consider more information than usual when you press TAB or M-? to request word completion:
(gdb) b bubble( M-? bubble(double,double) (gdb) b bubble( bubble(int,int)

In some cases, gdb can tell that completing a name requires using quotes. When this happens, gdb inserts the quote for you (while completing as much as it can) if you do not type the quote in the first place:
(gdb) b bub TAB gdb alters your input line to the following, and rings a bell: (gdb) b bubble(

Chapter 3: gdb Commands

21

In general, gdb can tell that a quote is needed (and inserts it) if you have not yet started typing the argument list when you ask for completion on an overloaded symbol. For more information about overloaded functions, see Section [Link] [C++ Expressions], page 168. You can use the command set overload-resolution off to disable overload resolution; see Section [Link] [gdb Features for C++], page 170. When completing in an expression which looks up a field in a structure, gdb also tries1 to limit completions to the field names available in the type of the left-hand-side:
(gdb) p gdb_stdout.M-? magic to_fputs to_data to_isatty to_delete to_put to_flush to_read to_rewind to_write to_write_async_safe

This is because the gdb_stdout is a variable of the type struct ui_file that is defined in gdb sources as follows:
struct ui_file { int *magic; ui_file_flush_ftype *to_flush; ui_file_write_ftype *to_write; ui_file_write_async_safe_ftype *to_write_async_safe; ui_file_fputs_ftype *to_fputs; ui_file_read_ftype *to_read; ui_file_delete_ftype *to_delete; ui_file_isatty_ftype *to_isatty; ui_file_rewind_ftype *to_rewind; ui_file_put_ftype *to_put; void *to_data; }

3.3 Getting Help

You can always ask gdb itself for information on its commands, using the command help. help h You can use help (abbreviated h) with no arguments to display a short list of named classes of commands:
(gdb) help List of classes of commands: aliases -- Aliases of other commands breakpoints -- Making program stop at certain points data -- Examining data files -- Specifying and examining files internals -- Maintenance commands obscure -- Obscure features running -- Running the program stack -- Examining the stack status -- Status inquiries support -- Support facilities tracepoints -- Tracing of program execution without stopping the program
1

The completer can be confused by certain kinds of invalid expressions. Also, it only examines the static type of the expression, not the dynamic type.

22

Debugging with gdb

user-defined -- User-defined commands Type "help" followed by a class name for a list of commands in that class. Type "help" followed by command name for full documentation. Command name abbreviations are allowed if unambiguous. (gdb)

help class Using one of the general help classes as an argument, you can get a list of the individual commands in that class. For example, here is the help display for the class status:
(gdb) help status Status inquiries. List of commands: info -- Generic command for showing things about the program being debugged show -- Generic command for showing things about the debugger Type "help" followed by command name for full documentation. Command name abbreviations are allowed if unambiguous. (gdb)

help command With a command name as help argument, gdb displays a short paragraph on how to use that command. apropos args The apropos command searches through all of the gdb commands, and their documentation, for the regular expression specified in args. It prints out all matches found. For example:
apropos reload

results in:
set symbol-reloading -- Set dynamic symbol table reloading multiple times in one run show symbol-reloading -- Show dynamic symbol table reloading multiple times in one run

complete args The complete args command lists all the possible completions for the beginning of a command. Use args to specify the beginning of the command you want completed. For example:
complete i

results in:
if ignore info inspect

This is intended for use by gnu Emacs.

Chapter 3: gdb Commands

23

In addition to help, you can use the gdb commands info and show to inquire about the state of your program, or the state of gdb itself. Each command supports many topics of inquiry; this manual introduces each of them in the appropriate context. The listings under info and under show in the Index point to all the sub-commands. See [Index], page 567. info This command (abbreviated i) is for describing the state of your program. For example, you can show the arguments passed to a function with info args, list the registers currently in use with info registers, or list the breakpoints you have set with info breakpoints. You can get a complete list of the info sub-commands with help info. You can assign the result of an expression to an environment variable with set. For example, you can set the gdb prompt to a $-sign with set prompt $. In contrast to info, show is for describing the state of gdb itself. You can change most of the things you can show, by using the related command set; for example, you can control what number system is used for displays with set radix, or simply inquire which is currently in use with show radix. To display all the settable parameters and their current values, you can use show with no arguments; you may also use info set. Both commands produce the same display.

set show

Here are three miscellaneous show subcommands, all of which are exceptional in lacking corresponding set commands: show version Show what version of gdb is running. You should include this information in gdb bug-reports. If multiple versions of gdb are in use at your site, you may need to determine which version of gdb you are running; as gdb evolves, new commands are introduced, and old ones may wither away. Also, many system vendors ship variant versions of gdb, and there are variant versions of gdb in gnu/Linux distributions as well. The version number is the same as the one announced when you start gdb. show copying info copying Display information about permission for copying gdb. show warranty info warranty Display the gnu NO WARRANTY statement, or a warranty, if your version of gdb comes with one.

Chapter 4: Running Programs Under gdb

25

4 Running Programs Under gdb

When you run a program under gdb, you must first generate debugging information when you compile it. You may start gdb with its arguments, if any, in an environment of your choice. If you are doing native debugging, you may redirect your programs input and output, debug an already running process, or kill a child process.

4.1 Compiling for Debugging

In order to debug a program effectively, you need to generate debugging information when you compile it. This debugging information is stored in the object file; it describes the data type of each variable or function and the correspondence between source line numbers and addresses in the executable code. To request debugging information, specify the -g option when you run the compiler. Programs that are to be shipped to your customers are compiled with optimizations, using the -O compiler option. However, some compilers are unable to handle the -g and -O options together. Using those compilers, you cannot generate optimized executables containing debugging information. gcc, the gnu C/C++ compiler, supports -g with or without -O, making it possible to debug optimized code. We recommend that you always use -g whenever you compile a program. You may think your program is correct, but there is no sense in pushing your luck. For more information, see Chapter 11 [Optimized Code], page 131. Older versions of the gnu C compiler permitted a variant option -gg for debugging information. gdb no longer supports this format; if your gnu C compiler has this option, do not use it. gdb knows about preprocessor macros and can show you their expansion (see Chapter 12 [Macros], page 135). Most compilers do not include information about preprocessor macros in the debugging information if you specify the -g flag alone. Version 3.1 and later of gcc, the gnu C compiler, provides macro information if you are using the DWARF debugging format, and specify the option -g3. See Section Options for Debugging Your Program or GCC in Using the gnu Compiler Collection (GCC), for more information on gcc options affecting debug information. You will have the best debugging experience if you use the latest version of the DWARF debugging format that your compiler supports. DWARF is currently the most expressive and best supported debugging format in gdb.

26

Debugging with gdb

4.2 Starting your Program

run r Use the run command to start your program under gdb. You must first specify the program name (except on VxWorks) with an argument to gdb (see Chapter 2 [Getting In and Out of gdb], page 11), or by using the file or exec-file command (see Section 18.1 [Commands to Specify Files], page 201).

If you are running your program in an execution environment that supports processes, run creates an inferior process and makes that process run your program. In some environments without processes, run jumps to the start of your program. Other targets, like remote, are always running. If you get an error message like this one:
The "remote" target does not support "run". Try "help target" or "continue".

then use continue to run your program. You may need load first (see [load], page 217). The execution of a program is affected by certain information it receives from its superior. gdb provides ways to specify this information, which you must do before starting your program. (You can change it after starting your program, but such changes only affect your program the next time you start it.) This information may be divided into four categories: The arguments. Specify the arguments to give your program as the arguments of the run command. If a shell is available on your target, the shell is used to pass the arguments, so that you may use normal conventions (such as wildcard expansion or variable substitution) in describing the arguments. In Unix systems, you can control which shell is used with the SHELL environment variable. See Section 4.3 [Your Programs Arguments], page 28. The environment. Your program normally inherits its environment from gdb, but you can use the gdb commands set environment and unset environment to change parts of the environment that affect your program. See Section 4.4 [Your Programs Environment], page 29. The working directory. Your program inherits its working directory from gdb. You can set the gdb working directory with the cd command in gdb. See Section 4.5 [Your Programs Working Directory], page 30. The standard input and output. Your program normally uses the same device for standard input and standard output as gdb is using. You can redirect input and output in the run command line, or you can use the tty command to set a different device for your program. See Section 4.6 [Your Programs Input and Output], page 30. Warning: While input and output redirection work, you cannot use pipes to pass the output of the program you are debugging to another program; if you attempt this, gdb is likely to wind up debugging the wrong program.

Chapter 4: Running Programs Under gdb

27

When you issue the run command, your program begins to execute immediately. See Chapter 5 [Stopping and Continuing], page 43, for discussion of how to arrange for your program to stop. Once your program has stopped, you may call functions in your program, using the print or call commands. See Chapter 10 [Examining Data], page 97. If the modification time of your symbol file has changed since the last time gdb read its symbols, gdb discards its symbol table, and reads it again. When it does this, gdb tries to retain your current breakpoints. start The name of the main procedure can vary from language to language. With C or C++, the main procedure name is always main, but other languages such as Ada do not require a specific name for their main procedure. The debugger provides a convenient way to start the execution of the program and to stop at the beginning of the main procedure, depending on the language used. The start command does the equivalent of setting a temporary breakpoint at the beginning of the main procedure and then invoking the run command. Some programs contain an elaboration phase where some startup code is executed before the main procedure is called. This depends on the languages used to write your program. In C++, for instance, constructors for static and global objects are executed before main is called. It is therefore possible that the debugger stops before reaching the main procedure. However, the temporary breakpoint will remain to halt execution. Specify the arguments to give to your program as arguments to the start command. These arguments will be given verbatim to the underlying run command. Note that the same arguments will be reused if no argument is provided during subsequent calls to start or run. It is sometimes necessary to debug the program during elaboration. In these cases, using the start command would stop the execution of your program too late, as the program would have already completed the elaboration phase. Under these circumstances, insert breakpoints in your elaboration code before running your program. set exec-wrapper wrapper show exec-wrapper unset exec-wrapper When exec-wrapper is set, the specified wrapper is used to launch programs for debugging. gdb starts your program with a shell command of the form exec wrapper program. Quoting is added to program and its arguments, but not to wrapper, so you should add quotes if appropriate for your shell. The wrapper runs until it executes your program, and then gdb takes control. You can use any program that eventually calls execve with its arguments as a wrapper. Several standard Unix utilities do this, e.g. env and nohup. Any Unix shell script ending with exec "$@" will also work. For example, you can use env to pass an environment variable to the debugged program, without setting the variable in your shells environment:
(gdb) set exec-wrapper env LD_PRELOAD=[Link] (gdb) run

28

Debugging with gdb

This command is available when debugging locally on most targets, excluding djgpp, Cygwin, MS Windows, and QNX Neutrino. set disable-randomization set disable-randomization on This option (enabled by default in gdb) will turn off the native randomization of the virtual address space of the started program. This option is useful for multiple debugging sessions to make the execution better reproducible and memory addresses reusable across debugging sessions. This feature is implemented only on certain targets, including gnu/Linux. On gnu/Linux you can get the same behavior using
(gdb) set exec-wrapper setarch uname -m -R

set disable-randomization off Leave the behavior of the started executable unchanged. Some bugs rear their ugly heads only when the program is loaded at certain addresses. If your bug disappears when you run the program under gdb, that might be because gdb by default disables the address randomization on platforms, such as gnu/Linux, which do that for stand-alone programs. Use set disable-randomization off to try to reproduce such elusive bugs. On targets where it is available, virtual address space randomization protects the programs against certain kinds of security attacks. In these cases the attacker needs to know the exact location of a concrete executable code. Randomizing its location makes it impossible to inject jumps misusing a code at its expected addresses. Prelinking shared libraries provides a startup performance advantage but it makes addresses in these libraries predictable for privileged processes by having just unprivileged access at the target system. Reading the shared library binary gives enough information for assembling the malicious code misusing it. Still even a prelinked shared library can get loaded at a new random address just requiring the regular relocation process during the startup. Shared libraries not already prelinked are always loaded at a randomly chosen address. Position independent executables (PIE) contain position independent code similar to the shared libraries and therefore such executables get loaded at a randomly chosen address upon startup. PIE executables always load even already prelinked shared libraries at a random address. You can build such executable using gcc -fPIE -pie. Heap (malloc storage), stack and custom mmap areas are always placed randomly (as long as the randomization is enabled). show disable-randomization Show the current setting of the explicit disable of the native randomization of the virtual address space of the started program.

4.3 Your Programs Arguments

The arguments to your program can be specified by the arguments of the run command. They are passed to a shell, which expands wildcard characters and performs redirection of

Chapter 4: Running Programs Under gdb

29

I/O, and thence to your program. Your SHELL environment variable (if it exists) specifies what shell gdb uses. If you do not define SHELL, gdb uses the default shell (/bin/sh on Unix). On non-Unix systems, the program is usually invoked directly by gdb, which emulates I/O redirection via the appropriate system calls, and the wildcard characters are expanded by the startup code of the program, not by the shell. run with no arguments uses the same arguments used by the previous run, or those set by the set args command. set args Specify the arguments to be used the next time your program is run. If set args has no arguments, run executes your program with no arguments. Once you have run your program with arguments, using set args before the next run is the only way to run it again without arguments.

show args Show the arguments to give your program when it is started.

4.4 Your Programs Environment

The environment consists of a set of environment variables and their values. Environment variables conventionally record such things as your user name, your home directory, your terminal type, and your search path for programs to run. Usually you set up environment variables with the shell and they are inherited by all the other programs you run. When debugging, it can be useful to try running your program with a modified environment without having to start gdb over again. path directory Add directory to the front of the PATH environment variable (the search path for executables) that will be passed to your program. The value of PATH used by gdb does not change. You may specify several directory names, separated by whitespace or by a system-dependent separator character (: on Unix, ; on MS-DOS and MS-Windows). If directory is already in the path, it is moved to the front, so it is searched sooner. You can use the string $cwd to refer to whatever is the current working directory at the time gdb searches the path. If you use . instead, it refers to the directory where you executed the path command. gdb replaces . in the directory argument (with the current path) before adding directory to the search path. show paths Display the list of search paths for executables (the PATH environment variable). show environment [varname] Print the value of environment variable varname to be given to your program when it starts. If you do not supply varname, print the names and values of all environment variables to be given to your program. You can abbreviate environment as env. set environment varname [=value] Set environment variable varname to value. The value changes for your program only, not for gdb itself. value may be any string; the values of environment

30

Debugging with gdb

variables are just strings, and any interpretation is supplied by your program itself. The value parameter is optional; if it is eliminated, the variable is set to a null value. For example, this command:
set env USER = foo

tells the debugged program, when subsequently run, that its user is named foo. (The spaces around = are used for clarity here; they are not actually required.) unset environment varname Remove variable varname from the environment to be passed to your program. This is different from set env varname =; unset environment removes the variable from the environment, rather than assigning it an empty value. Warning: On Unix systems, gdb runs your program using the shell indicated by your SHELL environment variable if it exists (or /bin/sh if not). If your SHELL variable names a shell that runs an initialization filesuch as .cshrc for C-shell, or .bashrc for BASH any variables you set in that file affect your program. You may wish to move setting of environment variables to files that are only run when you sign on, such as .login or .profile.

4.5 Your Programs Working Directory

Each time you start your program with run, it inherits its working directory from the current working directory of gdb. The gdb working directory is initially whatever it inherited from its parent process (typically the shell), but you can specify a new working directory in gdb with the cd command. The gdb working directory also serves as a default for the commands that specify files for gdb to operate on. See Section 18.1 [Commands to Specify Files], page 201. cd directory Set the gdb working directory to directory. pwd Print the gdb working directory. It is generally impossible to find the current working directory of the process being debugged (since a program can change its directory during its run). If you work on a system where gdb is configured with the /proc support, you can use the info proc command (see Section 21.1.3 [SVR4 Process Information], page 235) to find out the current working directory of the debuggee.

4.6 Your Programs Input and Output

By default, the program you run under gdb does input and output to the same terminal that gdb uses. gdb switches the terminal to its own terminal modes to interact with you, but it records the terminal modes your program was using and switches back to them when you continue running your program. info terminal Displays information recorded by gdb about the terminal modes your program is using.

Chapter 4: Running Programs Under gdb

31

You can redirect your programs input and/or output using shell redirection with the run command. For example,
run > outfile

starts your program, diverting its output to the file outfile. Another way to specify where your program should do input and output is with the tty command. This command accepts a file name as argument, and causes this file to be the default for future run commands. It also resets the controlling terminal for the child process, for future run commands. For example,
tty /dev/ttyb

directs that processes started with subsequent run commands default to do input and output on the terminal /dev/ttyb and have that as their controlling terminal. An explicit redirection in run overrides the tty commands effect on the input/output device, but not its effect on the controlling terminal. When you use the tty command or redirect input in the run command, only the input for your program is affected. The input for gdb still comes from your terminal. tty is an alias for set inferior-tty. You can use the show inferior-tty command to tell gdb to display the name of the terminal that will be used for future runs of your program. set inferior-tty /dev/ttyb Set the tty for the program being debugged to /dev/ttyb. show inferior-tty Show the current tty for the program being debugged.

4.7 Debugging an Already-running Process

attach process-id This command attaches to a running processone that was started outside gdb. (info files shows your active targets.) The command takes as argument a process ID. The usual way to find out the process-id of a Unix process is with the ps utility, or with the jobs -l shell command. attach does not repeat if you press RET a second time after executing the command. To use attach, your program must be running in an environment which supports processes; for example, attach does not work for programs on bare-board targets that lack an operating system. You must also have permission to send the process a signal. When you use attach, the debugger finds the program running in the process first by looking in the current working directory, then (if the program is not found) by using the source file search path (see Section 9.5 [Specifying Source Directories], page 90). You can also use the file command to load the program. See Section 18.1 [Commands to Specify Files], page 201. The first thing gdb does after arranging to debug the specified process is to stop it. You can examine and modify an attached process with all the gdb commands that are ordinarily available when you start processes with run. You can insert breakpoints; you can step and

32

Debugging with gdb

continue; you can modify storage. If you would rather the process continue running, you may use the continue command after attaching gdb to the process. detach When you have finished debugging the attached process, you can use the detach command to release it from gdb control. Detaching the process continues its execution. After the detach command, that process and gdb become completely independent once more, and you are ready to attach another process or start one with run. detach does not repeat if you press RET again after executing the command.

If you exit gdb while you have an attached process, you detach that process. If you use the run command, you kill that process. By default, gdb asks for confirmation if you try to do either of these things; you can control whether or not you need to confirm by using the set confirm command (see Section 22.7 [Optional Warnings and Messages], page 270).

4.8 Killing the Child Process

kill Kill the child process in which your program is running under gdb. This command is useful if you wish to debug a core dump instead of a running process. gdb ignores any core dump file while your program is running. On some operating systems, a program cannot be executed outside gdb while you have breakpoints set on it inside gdb. You can use the kill command in this situation to permit running your program outside the debugger. The kill command is also useful if you wish to recompile and relink your program, since on many systems it is impossible to modify an executable file while it is running in a process. In this case, when you next type run, gdb notices that the file has changed, and reads the symbol table again (while trying to preserve your current breakpoint settings).

4.9 Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs

gdb lets you run and debug multiple programs in a single session. In addition, gdb on some systems may let you run several programs simultaneously (otherwise you have to exit from one before starting another). In the most general case, you can have multiple threads of execution in each of multiple processes, launched from multiple executables. gdb represents the state of each program execution with an object called an inferior. An inferior typically corresponds to a process, but is more general and applies also to targets that do not have processes. Inferiors may be created before a process runs, and may be retained after a process exits. Inferiors have unique identifiers that are different from process ids. Usually each inferior will also have its own distinct address space, although some embedded targets may have several inferiors running in different parts of a single address space. Each inferior may in turn have multiple threads running in it. To find out what inferiors exist at any moment, use info inferiors: info inferiors Print a list of all inferiors currently being managed by gdb. gdb displays for each inferior (in this order): 1. the inferior number assigned by gdb

Chapter 4: Running Programs Under gdb

33

2. the target systems inferior identifier 3. the name of the executable the inferior is running. An asterisk * preceding the gdb inferior number indicates the current inferior. For example,
(gdb) info inferiors Num Description 2 process 2307 * 1 process 3401 Executable hello goodbye

To switch focus between inferiors, use the inferior command: inferior infno Make inferior number infno the current inferior. The argument infno is the inferior number assigned by gdb, as shown in the first field of the info inferiors display. You can get multiple executables into a debugging session via the add-inferior and clone-inferior commands. On some systems gdb can add inferiors to the debug session automatically by following calls to fork and exec. To remove inferiors from the debugging session use the remove-inferiors command. add-inferior [ -copies n ] [ -exec executable ] Adds n inferiors to be run using executable as the executable. n defaults to 1. If no executable is specified, the inferiors begins empty, with no program. You can still assign or change the program assigned to the inferior at any time by using the file command with the executable name as its argument. clone-inferior [ -copies n ] [ infno ] Adds n inferiors ready to execute the same program as inferior infno. n defaults to 1. infno defaults to the number of the current inferior. This is a convenient command when you want to run another instance of the inferior you are debugging.
(gdb) info inferiors Num Description * 1 process 29964 (gdb) clone-inferior Added inferior 2. 1 inferiors added. (gdb) info inferiors Num Description 2 <null> * 1 process 29964 Executable helloworld

Executable helloworld helloworld

You can now simply switch focus to inferior 2 and run it. remove-inferiors infno... Removes the inferior or inferiors infno . . . . It is not possible to remove an inferior that is running with this command. For those, use the kill or detach command first. To quit debugging one of the running inferiors that is not the current inferior, you can either detach from it by using the detach inferior command (allowing it to run independently), or kill it using the kill inferiors command:

34

Debugging with gdb

detach inferior infno... Detach from the inferior or inferiors identified by gdb inferior number(s) infno . . . . Note that the inferiors entry still stays on the list of inferiors shown by info inferiors, but its Description will show <null>. kill inferiors infno... Kill the inferior or inferiors identified by gdb inferior number(s) infno . . . . Note that the inferiors entry still stays on the list of inferiors shown by info inferiors, but its Description will show <null>. After the successful completion of a command such as detach, detach inferiors, kill or kill inferiors, or after a normal process exit, the inferior is still valid and listed with info inferiors, ready to be restarted. To be notified when inferiors are started or exit under gdbs control use set print inferior-events: set print inferior-events set print inferior-events on set print inferior-events off The set print inferior-events command allows you to enable or disable printing of messages when gdb notices that new inferiors have started or that inferiors have exited or have been detached. By default, these messages will not be printed. show print inferior-events Show whether messages will be printed when gdb detects that inferiors have started, exited or have been detached. Many commands will work the same with multiple programs as with a single program: e.g., print myglobal will simply display the value of myglobal in the current inferior. Occasionaly, when debugging gdb itself, it may be useful to get more info about the relationship of inferiors, programs, address spaces in a debug session. You can do that with the maint info program-spaces command. maint info program-spaces Print a list of all program spaces currently being managed by gdb. gdb displays for each program space (in this order): 1. the program space number assigned by gdb 2. the name of the executable loaded into the program space, with e.g., the file command. An asterisk * preceding the gdb program space number indicates the current program space. In addition, below each program space line, gdb prints extra information that isnt suitable to display in tabular form. For example, the list of inferiors bound to the program space.
(gdb) maint info program-spaces Id Executable 2 goodbye Bound inferiors: ID 1 (process 21561)

Chapter 4: Running Programs Under gdb

35

* 1

hello

Here we can see that no inferior is running the program hello, while process 21561 is running the program goodbye. On some targets, it is possible that multiple inferiors are bound to the same program space. The most common example is that of debugging both the parent and child processes of a vfork call. For example,
(gdb) maint info program-spaces Id Executable * 1 vfork-test Bound inferiors: ID 2 (process 18050), ID 1 (process 18045)

Here, both inferior 2 and inferior 1 are running in the same program space as a result of inferior 1 having executed a vfork call.

4.10 Debugging Programs with Multiple Threads

In some operating systems, such as HP-UX and Solaris, a single program may have more than one thread of execution. The precise semantics of threads differ from one operating system to another, but in general the threads of a single program are akin to multiple processesexcept that they share one address space (that is, they can all examine and modify the same variables). On the other hand, each thread has its own registers and execution stack, and perhaps private memory. gdb provides these facilities for debugging multi-thread programs: automatic notification of new threads thread threadno, a command to switch among threads info threads, a command to inquire about existing threads thread apply [threadno] [all] args, a command to apply a command to a list of threads thread-specific breakpoints set print thread-events, which controls printing of messages on thread start and exit. set libthread-db-search-path path, which lets the user specify which libthread_ db to use if the default choice isnt compatible with the program. Warning: These facilities are not yet available on every gdb configuration where the operating system supports threads. If your gdb does not support threads, these commands have no effect. For example, a system without thread support shows no output from info threads, and always rejects the thread command, like this:
(gdb) info threads (gdb) thread 1 Thread ID 1 not known. Use the "info threads" command to see the IDs of currently known threads.

The gdb thread debugging facility allows you to observe all threads while your program runsbut whenever gdb takes control, one thread in particular is always the focus of debugging. This thread is called the current thread. Debugging commands show program information from the perspective of the current thread.

36

Debugging with gdb

Whenever gdb detects a new thread in your program, it displays the target systems identification for the thread with a message in the form [New systag]. systag is a thread identifier whose form varies depending on the particular system. For example, on gnu/Linux, you might see
[New Thread 0x41e02940 (LWP 25582)]

when gdb notices a new thread. In contrast, on an SGI system, the systag is simply something like process 368, with no further qualifier. For debugging purposes, gdb associates its own thread numberalways a single integerwith each thread in your program. info threads [id...] Display a summary of all threads currently in your program. Optional argument id. . . is one or more thread ids separated by spaces, and means to print information only about the specified thread or threads. gdb displays for each thread (in this order): 1. the thread number assigned by gdb 2. the target systems thread identifier (systag) 3. the threads name, if one is known. A thread can either be named by the user (see thread name, below), or, in some cases, by the program itself. 4. the current stack frame summary for that thread An asterisk * to the left of the gdb thread number indicates the current thread. For example,
(gdb) info threads Id Target Id 3 process 35 thread 2 process 35 thread * 1 process 35 thread at threadtest.c:68 Frame 27 0x34e5 in sigpause () 23 0x34e5 in sigpause () 13 main (argc=1, argv=0x7ffffff8)

On Solaris, you can display more information about user threads with a Solaris-specific command: maint info sol-threads Display info on Solaris user threads. thread threadno Make thread number threadno the current thread. The command argument threadno is the internal gdb thread number, as shown in the first field of the info threads display. gdb responds by displaying the system identifier of the thread you selected, and its current stack frame summary:
(gdb) thread 2 [Switching to thread 2 (Thread 0xb7fdab70 (LWP 12747))] #0 some_function (ignore=0x0) at example.c:8 8 printf ("hello\n");

As with the [New ...] message, the form of the text after Switching to depends on your systems conventions for identifying threads. The debugger convenience variable $_thread contains the number of the current thread. You may find this useful in writing breakpoint conditional expressions, command scripts, and so forth. See See Section 10.11 [Convenience Variables], page 117, for general information on convenience variables.

Chapter 4: Running Programs Under gdb

37

thread apply [threadno | all] command The thread apply command allows you to apply the named command to one or more threads. Specify the numbers of the threads that you want affected with the command argument threadno. It can be a single thread number, one of the numbers shown in the first field of the info threads display; or it could be a range of thread numbers, as in 2-4. To apply a command to all threads, type thread apply all command. thread name [name] This command assigns a name to the current thread. If no argument is given, any existing user-specified name is removed. The thread name appears in the info threads display. On some systems, such as gnu/Linux, gdb is able to determine the name of the thread as given by the OS. On these systems, a name specified with thread name will override the system-give name, and removing the user-specified name will cause gdb to once again display the system-specified name. thread find [regexp] Search for and display thread ids whose name or systag matches the supplied regular expression. As well as being the complement to the thread name command, this command also allows you to identify a thread by its target systag. For instance, on gnu/Linux, the target systag is the LWP id.
(gdb) thread find 26688 Thread 4 has target id Thread 0x41e02940 (LWP 26688) (gdb) info thread 4 Id Target Id Frame 4 Thread 0x41e02940 (LWP 26688) 0x00000031ca6cd372 in select ()

set print thread-events set print thread-events on set print thread-events off The set print thread-events command allows you to enable or disable printing of messages when gdb notices that new threads have started or that threads have exited. By default, these messages will be printed if detection of these events is supported by the target. Note that these messages cannot be disabled on all targets. show print thread-events Show whether messages will be printed when gdb detects that threads have started and exited. See Section 5.5 [Stopping and Starting Multi-thread Programs], page 68, for more information about how gdb behaves when you stop and start programs with multiple threads. See Section 5.1.2 [Setting Watchpoints], page 49, for information about watchpoints in programs with multiple threads. set libthread-db-search-path [path] If this variable is set, path is a colon-separated list of directories gdb will use to search for libthread_db. If you omit path, libthread-db-search-path

38

Debugging with gdb

will be reset to its default value ($sdir:$pdir on gnu/Linux and Solaris systems). Internally, the default value comes from the LIBTHREAD_DB_SEARCH_ PATH macro. On gnu/Linux and Solaris systems, gdb uses a helper libthread_db library to obtain information about threads in the inferior process. gdb will use libthread-db-search-path to find libthread_db. A special entry $sdir for libthread-db-search-path refers to the default system directories that are normally searched for loading shared libraries. A special entry $pdir for libthread-db-search-path refers to the directory from which libpthread was loaded in the inferior process. For any libthread_db library gdb finds in above directories, gdb attempts to initialize it with the current inferior process. If this initialization fails (which could happen because of a version mismatch between libthread_db and libpthread), gdb will unload libthread_db, and continue with the next directory. If none of libthread_db libraries initialize successfully, gdb will issue a warning and thread debugging will be disabled. Setting libthread-db-search-path is currently implemented only on some platforms. show libthread-db-search-path Display current libthread db search path. set debug libthread-db show debug libthread-db Turns on or off display of libthread_db-related events. Use 1 to enable, 0 to disable.

4.11 Debugging Forks

On most systems, gdb has no special support for debugging programs which create additional processes using the fork function. When a program forks, gdb will continue to debug the parent process and the child process will run unimpeded. If you have set a breakpoint in any code which the child then executes, the child will get a SIGTRAP signal which (unless it catches the signal) will cause it to terminate. However, if you want to debug the child process there is a workaround which isnt too painful. Put a call to sleep in the code which the child process executes after the fork. It may be useful to sleep only if a certain environment variable is set, or a certain file exists, so that the delay need not occur when you dont want to run gdb on the child. While the child is sleeping, use the ps program to get its process ID. Then tell gdb (a new invocation of gdb if you are also debugging the parent process) to attach to the child process (see Section 4.7 [Attach], page 31). From that point on you can debug the child process just like any other process which you attached to. On some systems, gdb provides support for debugging programs that create additional processes using the fork or vfork functions. Currently, the only platforms with this feature are HP-UX (11.x and later only?) and gnu/Linux (kernel version 2.5.60 and later). By default, when a program forks, gdb will continue to debug the parent process and the child process will run unimpeded.

Chapter 4: Running Programs Under gdb

39

If you want to follow the child process instead of the parent process, use the command set follow-fork-mode. set follow-fork-mode mode Set the debugger response to a program call of fork or vfork. A call to fork or vfork creates a new process. The mode argument can be: parent child The original process is debugged after a fork. The child process runs unimpeded. This is the default. The new process is debugged after a fork. The parent process runs unimpeded.

show follow-fork-mode Display the current debugger response to a fork or vfork call. On Linux, if you want to debug both the parent and child processes, use the command set detach-on-fork. set detach-on-fork mode Tells gdb whether to detach one of the processes after a fork, or retain debugger control over them both. on The child process (or parent process, depending on the value of follow-fork-mode) will be detached and allowed to run independently. This is the default. Both processes will be held under the control of gdb. One process (child or parent, depending on the value of follow-fork-mode) is debugged as usual, while the other is held suspended.

off

show detach-on-fork Show whether detach-on-fork mode is on/off. If you choose to set detach-on-fork mode off, then gdb will retain control of all forked processes (including nested forks). You can list the forked processes under the control of gdb by using the info inferiors command, and switch from one fork to another by using the inferior command (see Section 4.9 [Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs], page 32). To quit debugging one of the forked processes, you can either detach from it by using the detach inferiors command (allowing it to run independently), or kill it using the kill inferiors command. See Section 4.9 [Debugging Multiple Inferiors and Programs], page 32. If you ask to debug a child process and a vfork is followed by an exec, gdb executes the new target up to the first breakpoint in the new target. If you have a breakpoint set on main in your original program, the breakpoint will also be set on the child processs main. On some systems, when a child process is spawned by vfork, you cannot debug the child or parent until an exec call completes. If you issue a run command to gdb after an exec call executes, the new target restarts. To restart the parent process, use the file command with the parent executable name as its argument. By default, after an exec call executes, gdb discards the symbols of the previous executable image. You can change this behaviour with the set follow-exec-mode command.

40

Debugging with gdb

set follow-exec-mode mode Set debugger response to a program call of exec. An exec call replaces the program image of a process. follow-exec-mode can be: new gdb creates a new inferior and rebinds the process to this new inferior. The program the process was running before the exec call can be restarted afterwards by restarting the original inferior. For example:
(gdb) info inferiors (gdb) info inferior Id Description Executable * 1 <null> prog1 (gdb) run process 12020 is executing new program: prog2 Program exited normally. (gdb) info inferiors Id Description Executable * 2 <null> prog2 1 <null> prog1

same

gdb keeps the process bound to the same inferior. The new executable image replaces the previous executable loaded in the inferior. Restarting the inferior after the exec call, with e.g., the run command, restarts the executable the process was running after the exec call. This is the default mode. For example:
(gdb) info inferiors Id Description Executable * 1 <null> prog1 (gdb) run process 12020 is executing new program: prog2 Program exited normally. (gdb) info inferiors Id Description Executable * 1 <null> prog2

You can use the catch command to make gdb stop whenever a fork, vfork, or exec call is made. See Section 5.1.3 [Setting Catchpoints], page 52.

4.12 Setting a Bookmark to Return to Later

On certain operating systems1 , gdb is able to save a snapshot of a programs state, called a checkpoint, and come back to it later. Returning to a checkpoint effectively undoes everything that has happened in the program since the checkpoint was saved. This includes changes in memory, registers, and even (within some limits) system state. Effectively, it is like going back in time to the moment when the checkpoint was saved. Thus, if youre stepping thru a program and you think youre getting close to the point where things go wrong, you can save a checkpoint. Then, if you accidentally go too far and
1

Currently, only gnu/Linux.

Chapter 4: Running Programs Under gdb

41

miss the critical statement, instead of having to restart your program from the beginning, you can just go back to the checkpoint and start again from there. This can be especially useful if it takes a lot of time or steps to reach the point where you think the bug occurs. To use the checkpoint/restart method of debugging: checkpoint Save a snapshot of the debugged programs current execution state. The checkpoint command takes no arguments, but each checkpoint is assigned a small integer id, similar to a breakpoint id. info checkpoints List the checkpoints that have been saved in the current debugging session. For each checkpoint, the following information will be listed: Checkpoint ID Process ID Code Address Source line, or label restart checkpoint-id Restore the program state that was saved as checkpoint number checkpoint-id. All program variables, registers, stack frames etc. will be returned to the values that they had when the checkpoint was saved. In essence, gdb will wind back the clock to the point in time when the checkpoint was saved. Note that breakpoints, gdb variables, command history etc. are not affected by restoring a checkpoint. In general, a checkpoint only restores things that reside in the program being debugged, not in the debugger. delete checkpoint checkpoint-id Delete the previously-saved checkpoint identified by checkpoint-id. Returning to a previously saved checkpoint will restore the user state of the program being debugged, plus a significant subset of the system (OS) state, including file pointers. It wont un-write data from a file, but it will rewind the file pointer to the previous location, so that the previously written data can be overwritten. For files opened in read mode, the pointer will also be restored so that the previously read data can be read again. Of course, characters that have been sent to a printer (or other external device) cannot be snatched back, and characters received from eg. a serial device can be removed from internal program buffers, but they cannot be pushed back into the serial pipeline, ready to be received again. Similarly, the actual contents of files that have been changed cannot be restored (at this time). However, within those constraints, you actually can rewind your program to a previously saved point in time, and begin debugging it again and you can change the course of events so as to debug a different execution path this time. Finally, there is one bit of internal program state that will be different when you return to a checkpoint the programs process id. Each checkpoint will have a unique process id (or pid), and each will be different from the programs original pid. If your program has saved a local copy of its process id, this could potentially pose a problem.

42

Debugging with gdb

4.12.1 A Non-obvious Benefit of Using Checkpoints

On some systems such as gnu/Linux, address space randomization is performed on new processes for security reasons. This makes it difficult or impossible to set a breakpoint, or watchpoint, on an absolute address if you have to restart the program, since the absolute location of a symbol will change from one execution to the next. A checkpoint, however, is an identical copy of a process. Therefore if you create a checkpoint at (eg.) the start of main, and simply return to that checkpoint instead of restarting the process, you can avoid the effects of address randomization and your symbols will all stay in the same place.

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

43

5 Stopping and Continuing

The principal purposes of using a debugger are so that you can stop your program before it terminates; or so that, if your program runs into trouble, you can investigate and find out why. Inside gdb, your program may stop for any of several reasons, such as a signal, a breakpoint, or reaching a new line after a gdb command such as step. You may then examine and change variables, set new breakpoints or remove old ones, and then continue execution. Usually, the messages shown by gdb provide ample explanation of the status of your programbut you can also explicitly request this information at any time. info program Display information about the status of your program: whether it is running or not, what process it is, and why it stopped.

5.1 Breakpoints, Watchpoints, and Catchpoints

A breakpoint makes your program stop whenever a certain point in the program is reached. For each breakpoint, you can add conditions to control in finer detail whether your program stops. You can set breakpoints with the break command and its variants (see Section 5.1.1 [Setting Breakpoints], page 44), to specify the place where your program should stop by line number, function name or exact address in the program. On some systems, you can set breakpoints in shared libraries before the executable is run. There is a minor limitation on HP-UX systems: you must wait until the executable is run in order to set breakpoints in shared library routines that are not called directly by the program (for example, routines that are arguments in a pthread_create call). A watchpoint is a special breakpoint that stops your program when the value of an expression changes. The expression may be a value of a variable, or it could involve values of one or more variables combined by operators, such as a + b. This is sometimes called data breakpoints. You must use a different command to set watchpoints (see Section 5.1.2 [Setting Watchpoints], page 49), but aside from that, you can manage a watchpoint like any other breakpoint: you enable, disable, and delete both breakpoints and watchpoints using the same commands. You can arrange to have values from your program displayed automatically whenever gdb stops at a breakpoint. See Section 10.7 [Automatic Display], page 105. A catchpoint is another special breakpoint that stops your program when a certain kind of event occurs, such as the throwing of a C++ exception or the loading of a library. As with watchpoints, you use a different command to set a catchpoint (see Section 5.1.3 [Setting Catchpoints], page 52), but aside from that, you can manage a catchpoint like any other breakpoint. (To stop when your program receives a signal, use the handle command; see Section 5.4 [Signals], page 66.) gdb assigns a number to each breakpoint, watchpoint, or catchpoint when you create it; these numbers are successive integers starting with one. In many of the commands for controlling various features of breakpoints you use the breakpoint number to say which breakpoint you want to change. Each breakpoint may be enabled or disabled; if disabled, it has no effect on your program until you enable it again.

44

Debugging with gdb

Some gdb commands accept a range of breakpoints on which to operate. A breakpoint range is either a single breakpoint number, like 5, or two such numbers, in increasing order, separated by a hyphen, like 5-7. When a breakpoint range is given to a command, all breakpoints in that range are operated on.

5.1.1 Setting Breakpoints

Breakpoints are set with the break command (abbreviated b). The debugger convenience variable $bpnum records the number of the breakpoint youve set most recently; see Section 10.11 [Convenience Variables], page 117, for a discussion of what you can do with convenience variables. break location Set a breakpoint at the given location, which can specify a function name, a line number, or an address of an instruction. (See Section 9.2 [Specify Location], page 88, for a list of all the possible ways to specify a location.) The breakpoint will stop your program just before it executes any of the code in the specified location. When using source languages that permit overloading of symbols, such as C++, a function name may refer to more than one possible place to break. See Section 10.2 [Ambiguous Expressions], page 98, for a discussion of that situation. It is also possible to insert a breakpoint that will stop the program only if a specific thread (see Section 5.5.4 [Thread-Specific Breakpoints], page 72) or a specific task (see Section [Link] [Ada Tasks], page 183) hits that breakpoint. break When called without any arguments, break sets a breakpoint at the next instruction to be executed in the selected stack frame (see Chapter 8 [Examining the Stack], page 81). In any selected frame but the innermost, this makes your program stop as soon as control returns to that frame. This is similar to the effect of a finish command in the frame inside the selected frameexcept that finish does not leave an active breakpoint. If you use break without an argument in the innermost frame, gdb stops the next time it reaches the current location; this may be useful inside loops. gdb normally ignores breakpoints when it resumes execution, until at least one instruction has been executed. If it did not do this, you would be unable to proceed past a breakpoint without first disabling the breakpoint. This rule applies whether or not the breakpoint already existed when your program stopped. break ... if cond Set a breakpoint with condition cond; evaluate the expression cond each time the breakpoint is reached, and stop only if the value is nonzerothat is, if cond evaluates as true. ... stands for one of the possible arguments described above (or no argument) specifying where to break. See Section 5.1.6 [Break Conditions], page 57, for more information on breakpoint conditions. tbreak args Set a breakpoint enabled only for one stop. args are the same as for the break command, and the breakpoint is set in the same way, but the breakpoint is auto-

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

45

matically deleted after the first time your program stops there. See Section 5.1.5 [Disabling Breakpoints], page 56. hbreak args Set a hardware-assisted breakpoint. args are the same as for the break command and the breakpoint is set in the same way, but the breakpoint requires hardware support and some target hardware may not have this support. The main purpose of this is EPROM/ROM code debugging, so you can set a breakpoint at an instruction without changing the instruction. This can be used with the new trap-generation provided by SPARClite DSU and most x86-based targets. These targets will generate traps when a program accesses some data or instruction address that is assigned to the debug registers. However the hardware breakpoint registers can take a limited number of breakpoints. For example, on the DSU, only two data breakpoints can be set at a time, and gdb will reject this command if more than two are used. Delete or disable unused hardware breakpoints before setting new ones (see Section 5.1.5 [Disabling Breakpoints], page 56). See Section 5.1.6 [Break Conditions], page 57. For remote targets, you can restrict the number of hardware breakpoints gdb will use, see [set remote hardware-breakpoint-limit], page 227. thbreak args Set a hardware-assisted breakpoint enabled only for one stop. args are the same as for the hbreak command and the breakpoint is set in the same way. However, like the tbreak command, the breakpoint is automatically deleted after the first time your program stops there. Also, like the hbreak command, the breakpoint requires hardware support and some target hardware may not have this support. See Section 5.1.5 [Disabling Breakpoints], page 56. See also Section 5.1.6 [Break Conditions], page 57. rbreak regex Set breakpoints on all functions matching the regular expression regex. This command sets an unconditional breakpoint on all matches, printing a list of all breakpoints it set. Once these breakpoints are set, they are treated just like the breakpoints set with the break command. You can delete them, disable them, or make them conditional the same way as any other breakpoint. The syntax of the regular expression is the standard one used with tools like grep. Note that this is different from the syntax used by shells, so for instance foo* matches all functions that include an fo followed by zero or more os. There is an implicit .* leading and trailing the regular expression you supply, so to match only functions that begin with foo, use ^foo. When debugging C++ programs, rbreak is useful for setting breakpoints on overloaded functions that are not members of any special classes. The rbreak command can be used to set breakpoints in all the functions in a program, like this:
(gdb) rbreak .

46

Debugging with gdb

rbreak file:regex If rbreak is called with a filename qualification, it limits the search for functions matching the given regular expression to the specified file. This can be used, for example, to set breakpoints on every function in a given file:
(gdb) rbreak file.c:.

The colon separating the filename qualifier from the regex may optionally be surrounded by spaces. info breakpoints [n...] info break [n...] Print a table of all breakpoints, watchpoints, and catchpoints set and not deleted. Optional argument n means print information only about the specified breakpoint(s) (or watchpoint(s) or catchpoint(s)). For each breakpoint, following columns are printed: Breakpoint Numbers Type Breakpoint, watchpoint, or catchpoint. Disposition Whether the breakpoint is marked to be disabled or deleted when hit. Enabled or Disabled Enabled breakpoints are marked with y. n marks breakpoints that are not enabled. Address Where the breakpoint is in your program, as a memory address. For a pending breakpoint whose address is not yet known, this field will contain <PENDING>. Such breakpoint wont fire until a shared library that has the symbol or line referred by breakpoint is loaded. See below for details. A breakpoint with several locations will have <MULTIPLE> in this fieldsee below for details. Where the breakpoint is in the source for your program, as a file and line number. For a pending breakpoint, the original string passed to the breakpoint command will be listed as it cannot be resolved until the appropriate shared library is loaded in the future.

What

If a breakpoint is conditional, info break shows the condition on the line following the affected breakpoint; breakpoint commands, if any, are listed after that. A pending breakpoint is allowed to have a condition specified for it. The condition is not parsed for validity until a shared library is loaded that allows the pending breakpoint to resolve to a valid location. info break with a breakpoint number n as argument lists only that breakpoint. The convenience variable $_ and the default examining-address for the x command are set to the address of the last breakpoint listed (see Section 10.6 [Examining Memory], page 103). info break displays a count of the number of times the breakpoint has been hit. This is especially useful in conjunction with the ignore command. You can ignore a large number of breakpoint hits, look at the breakpoint info to see

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

47

how many times the breakpoint was hit, and then run again, ignoring one less than that number. This will get you quickly to the last hit of that breakpoint. gdb allows you to set any number of breakpoints at the same place in your program. There is nothing silly or meaningless about this. When the breakpoints are conditional, this is even useful (see Section 5.1.6 [Break Conditions], page 57). It is possible that a breakpoint corresponds to several locations in your program. Examples of this situation are: For a C++ constructor, the gcc compiler generates several instances of the function body, used in different cases. For a C++ template function, a given line in the function can correspond to any number of instantiations. For an inlined function, a given source line can correspond to several places where that function is inlined. In all those cases, gdb will insert a breakpoint at all the relevant locations1 . A breakpoint with multiple locations is displayed in the breakpoint table using several rowsone header row, followed by one row for each breakpoint location. The header row has <MULTIPLE> in the address column. The rows for individual locations contain the actual addresses for locations, and show the functions to which those locations belong. The number column for a location is of the form [Link]-number. For example:
Num 1 Type Disp Enb breakpoint keep y stop only if i==1 breakpoint already hit 1 y y Address What <MULTIPLE> time 0x080486a2 in void foo<int>() at [Link] 0x080486ca in void foo<double>() at [Link]

1.1 1.2

Each location can be individually enabled or disabled by passing [Link]-number as argument to the enable and disable commands. Note that you cannot delete the individual locations from the list, you can only delete the entire list of locations that belong to their parent breakpoint (with the delete num command, where num is the number of the parent breakpoint, 1 in the above example). Disabling or enabling the parent breakpoint (see Section 5.1.5 [Disabling], page 56) affects all of the locations that belong to that breakpoint. Its quite common to have a breakpoint inside a shared library. Shared libraries can be loaded and unloaded explicitly, and possibly repeatedly, as the program is executed. To support this use case, gdb updates breakpoint locations whenever any shared library is loaded or unloaded. Typically, you would set a breakpoint in a shared library at the beginning of your debugging session, when the library is not loaded, and when the symbols from the library are not available. When you try to set breakpoint, gdb will ask you if you want to set a so called pending breakpointbreakpoint whose address is not yet resolved. After the program is run, whenever a new shared library is loaded, gdb reevaluates all the breakpoints. When a newly loaded shared library contains the symbol or line referred to by
1

As of this writing, multiple-location breakpoints work only if theres line number information for all the locations. This means that they will generally not work in system libraries, unless you have debug info with line numbers for them.

48

Debugging with gdb

some pending breakpoint, that breakpoint is resolved and becomes an ordinary breakpoint. When a library is unloaded, all breakpoints that refer to its symbols or source lines become pending again. This logic works for breakpoints with multiple locations, too. For example, if you have a breakpoint in a C++ template function, and a newly loaded shared library has an instantiation of that template, a new location is added to the list of locations for the breakpoint. Except for having unresolved address, pending breakpoints do not differ from regular breakpoints. You can set conditions or commands, enable and disable them and perform other breakpoint operations. gdb provides some additional commands for controlling what happens when the break command cannot resolve breakpoint address specification to an address: set breakpoint pending auto This is the default behavior. When gdb cannot find the breakpoint location, it queries you whether a pending breakpoint should be created. set breakpoint pending on This indicates that an unrecognized breakpoint location should automatically result in a pending breakpoint being created. set breakpoint pending off This indicates that pending breakpoints are not to be created. Any unrecognized breakpoint location results in an error. This setting does not affect any pending breakpoints previously created. show breakpoint pending Show the current behavior setting for creating pending breakpoints. The settings above only affect the break command and its variants. Once breakpoint is set, it will be automatically updated as shared libraries are loaded and unloaded. For some targets, gdb can automatically decide if hardware or software breakpoints should be used, depending on whether the breakpoint address is read-only or read-write. This applies to breakpoints set with the break command as well as to internal breakpoints set by commands like next and finish. For breakpoints set with hbreak, gdb will always use hardware breakpoints. You can control this automatic behaviour with the following commands:: set breakpoint auto-hw on This is the default behavior. When gdb sets a breakpoint, it will try to use the target memory map to decide if software or hardware breakpoint must be used. set breakpoint auto-hw off This indicates gdb should not automatically select breakpoint type. If the target provides a memory map, gdb will warn when trying to set software breakpoint at a read-only address. gdb normally implements breakpoints by replacing the program code at the breakpoint address with a special instruction, which, when executed, given control to the debugger. By default, the program code is so modified only when the program is resumed. As soon as the program stops, gdb restores the original instructions. This behaviour guards against

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

49

leaving breakpoints inserted in the target should gdb abrubptly disconnect. However, with slow remote targets, inserting and removing breakpoint can reduce the performance. This behavior can be controlled with the following commands:: set breakpoint always-inserted off All breakpoints, including newly added by the user, are inserted in the target only when the target is resumed. All breakpoints are removed from the target when it stops. set breakpoint always-inserted on Causes all breakpoints to be inserted in the target at all times. If the user adds a new breakpoint, or changes an existing breakpoint, the breakpoints in the target are updated immediately. A breakpoint is removed from the target only when breakpoint itself is removed. set breakpoint always-inserted auto This is the default mode. If gdb is controlling the inferior in non-stop mode (see Section 5.5.2 [Non-Stop Mode], page 69), gdb behaves as if breakpoint always-inserted mode is on. If gdb is controlling the inferior in all-stop mode, gdb behaves as if breakpoint always-inserted mode is off. gdb itself sometimes sets breakpoints in your program for special purposes, such as proper handling of longjmp (in C programs). These internal breakpoints are assigned negative numbers, starting with -1; info breakpoints does not display them. You can see these breakpoints with the gdb maintenance command maint info breakpoints (see [maint info breakpoints], page 457).

5.1.2 Setting Watchpoints

You can use a watchpoint to stop execution whenever the value of an expression changes, without having to predict a particular place where this may happen. (This is sometimes called a data breakpoint.) The expression may be as simple as the value of a single variable, or as complex as many variables combined by operators. Examples include: A reference to the value of a single variable. An address cast to an appropriate data type. For example, *(int *)0x12345678 will watch a 4-byte region at the specified address (assuming an int occupies 4 bytes). An arbitrarily complex expression, such as a*b + c/d. The expression can use any operators valid in the programs native language (see Chapter 15 [Languages], page 161). You can set a watchpoint on an expression even if the expression can not be evaluated yet. For instance, you can set a watchpoint on *global_ptr before global_ptr is initialized. gdb will stop when your program sets global_ptr and the expression produces a valid value. If the expression becomes valid in some other way than changing a variable (e.g. if the memory pointed to by *global_ptr becomes readable as the result of a malloc call), gdb may not stop until the next time the expression changes. Depending on your system, watchpoints may be implemented in software or hardware. gdb does software watchpointing by single-stepping your program and testing the variables value each time, which is hundreds of times slower than normal execution. (But this may still be worth it, to catch errors where you have no clue what part of your program is the culprit.)

50

Debugging with gdb

On some systems, such as HP-UX, PowerPC, gnu/Linux and most other x86-based targets, gdb includes support for hardware watchpoints, which do not slow down the running of your program. watch [-l|-location] expr [thread threadnum] [mask maskvalue] Set a watchpoint for an expression. gdb will break when the expression expr is written into by the program and its value changes. The simplest (and the most popular) use of this command is to watch the value of a single variable:
(gdb) watch foo

If the command includes a [thread threadnum] argument, gdb breaks only when the thread identified by threadnum changes the value of expr. If any other threads change the value of expr, gdb will not break. Note that watchpoints restricted to a single thread in this way only work with Hardware Watchpoints. Ordinarily a watchpoint respects the scope of variables in expr (see below). The -location argument tells gdb to instead watch the memory referred to by expr. In this case, gdb will evaluate expr, take the address of the result, and watch the memory at that address. The type of the result is used to determine the size of the watched memory. If the expressions result does not have an address, then gdb will print an error. The [mask maskvalue] argument allows creation of masked watchpoints, if the current architecture supports this feature (e.g., PowerPC Embedded architecture, see Section 21.3.7 [PowerPC Embedded], page 255.) A masked watchpoint specifies a mask in addition to an address to watch. The mask specifies that some bits of an address (the bits which are reset in the mask) should be ignored when matching the address accessed by the inferior against the watchpoint address. Thus, a masked watchpoint watches many addresses simultaneously those addresses whose unmasked bits are identical to the unmasked bits in the watchpoint address. The mask argument implies -location. Examples:
(gdb) watch foo mask 0xffff00ff (gdb) watch *0xdeadbeef mask 0xffffff00

rwatch [-l|-location] expr [thread threadnum] [mask maskvalue] Set a watchpoint that will break when the value of expr is read by the program. awatch [-l|-location] expr [thread threadnum] [mask maskvalue] Set a watchpoint that will break when expr is either read from or written into by the program. info watchpoints [n...] This command prints a list of watchpoints, using the same format as info break (see Section 5.1.1 [Set Breaks], page 44). If you watch for a change in a numerically entered address you need to dereference it, as the address itself is just a constant number which will never change. gdb refuses to create a watchpoint that watches a never-changing value:
(gdb) watch 0x600850 Cannot watch constant value 0x600850. (gdb) watch *(int *) 0x600850 Watchpoint 1: *(int *) 6293584

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

51

gdb sets a hardware watchpoint if possible. Hardware watchpoints execute very quickly, and the debugger reports a change in value at the exact instruction where the change occurs. If gdb cannot set a hardware watchpoint, it sets a software watchpoint, which executes more slowly and reports the change in value at the next statement, not the instruction, after the change occurs. You can force gdb to use only software watchpoints with the set can-use-hwwatchpoints 0 command. With this variable set to zero, gdb will never try to use hardware watchpoints, even if the underlying system supports them. (Note that hardware-assisted watchpoints that were set before setting can-use-hw-watchpoints to zero will still use the hardware mechanism of watching expression values.) set can-use-hw-watchpoints Set whether or not to use hardware watchpoints. show can-use-hw-watchpoints Show the current mode of using hardware watchpoints. For remote targets, you can restrict the number of hardware watchpoints gdb will use, see [set remote hardware-breakpoint-limit], page 227. When you issue the watch command, gdb reports
Hardware watchpoint num: expr

if it was able to set a hardware watchpoint. Currently, the awatch and rwatch commands can only set hardware watchpoints, because accesses to data that dont change the value of the watched expression cannot be detected without examining every instruction as it is being executed, and gdb does not do that currently. If gdb finds that it is unable to set a hardware breakpoint with the awatch or rwatch command, it will print a message like this:
Expression cannot be implemented with read/access watchpoint.

Sometimes, gdb cannot set a hardware watchpoint because the data type of the watched expression is wider than what a hardware watchpoint on the target machine can handle. For example, some systems can only watch regions that are up to 4 bytes wide; on such systems you cannot set hardware watchpoints for an expression that yields a double-precision floating-point number (which is typically 8 bytes wide). As a work-around, it might be possible to break the large region into a series of smaller ones and watch them with separate watchpoints. If you set too many hardware watchpoints, gdb might be unable to insert all of them when you resume the execution of your program. Since the precise number of active watchpoints is unknown until such time as the program is about to be resumed, gdb might not be able to warn you about this when you set the watchpoints, and the warning will be printed only when the program is resumed:
Hardware watchpoint num: Could not insert watchpoint

If this happens, delete or disable some of the watchpoints. Watching complex expressions that reference many variables can also exhaust the resources available for hardware-assisted watchpoints. Thats because gdb needs to watch every variable in the expression with separately allocated resources. If you call a function interactively using print or call, any watchpoints you have set will be inactive until gdb reaches another kind of breakpoint or the call completes.

52

Debugging with gdb

gdb automatically deletes watchpoints that watch local (automatic) variables, or expressions that involve such variables, when they go out of scope, that is, when the execution leaves the block in which these variables were defined. In particular, when the program being debugged terminates, all local variables go out of scope, and so only watchpoints that watch global variables remain set. If you rerun the program, you will need to set all such watchpoints again. One way of doing that would be to set a code breakpoint at the entry to the main function and when it breaks, set all the watchpoints. In multi-threaded programs, watchpoints will detect changes to the watched expression from every thread. Warning: In multi-threaded programs, software watchpoints have only limited usefulness. If gdb creates a software watchpoint, it can only watch the value of an expression in a single thread. If you are confident that the expression can only change due to the current threads activity (and if you are also confident that no other thread can become current), then you can use software watchpoints as usual. However, gdb may not notice when a non-current threads activity changes the expression. (Hardware watchpoints, in contrast, watch an expression in all threads.) See [set remote hardware-watchpoint-limit], page 227.

5.1.3 Setting Catchpoints

You can use catchpoints to cause the debugger to stop for certain kinds of program events, such as C++ exceptions or the loading of a shared library. Use the catch command to set a catchpoint. catch event Stop when event occurs. event can be any of the following: throw catch exception An Ada exception being raised. If an exception name is specified at the end of the command (eg catch exception Program_Error), the debugger will stop only when this specific exception is raised. Otherwise, the debugger stops execution when any Ada exception is raised. When inserting an exception catchpoint on a user-defined exception whose name is identical to one of the exceptions defined by the language, the fully qualified name must be used as the exception name. Otherwise, gdb will assume that it should stop on the pre-defined exception rather than the user-defined one. For instance, assuming an exception called Constraint_Error is defined in package Pck, then the command to use to catch such exceptions is catch exception Pck.Constraint_Error. exception unhandled An exception that was raised but is not handled by the program. The throwing of a C++ exception. The catching of a C++ exception.

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

53

assert exec

A failed Ada assertion. A call to exec. This is currently only available for HP-UX and gnu/Linux.

syscall syscall [name | number] ... A call to or return from a system call, a.k.a. syscall. A syscall is a mechanism for application programs to request a service from the operating system (OS) or one of the OS system services. gdb can catch some or all of the syscalls issued by the debuggee, and show the related information for each syscall. If no argument is specified, calls to and returns from all system calls will be caught. name can be any system call name that is valid for the underlying OS. Just what syscalls are valid depends on the OS. On GNU and Unix systems, you can find the full list of valid syscall names on /usr/include/asm/unistd.h. Normally, gdb knows in advance which syscalls are valid for each OS, so you can use the gdb command-line completion facilities (see Section 3.2 [command completion], page 19) to list the available choices. You may also specify the system call numerically. A syscalls number is the value passed to the OSs syscall dispatcher to identify the requested service. When you specify the syscall by its name, gdb uses its database of syscalls to convert the name into the corresponding numeric code, but using the number directly may be useful if gdbs database does not have the complete list of syscalls on your system (e.g., because gdb lags behind the OS upgrades). The example below illustrates how this command works if you dont provide arguments to it:
(gdb) catch syscall Catchpoint 1 (syscall) (gdb) r Starting program: /tmp/catch-syscall Catchpoint 1 (call to syscall close), \ 0xffffe424 in __kernel_vsyscall () (gdb) c Continuing. Catchpoint 1 (returned from syscall close), \ 0xffffe424 in __kernel_vsyscall () (gdb)

Here is an example of catching a system call by name:

(gdb) catch syscall chroot Catchpoint 1 (syscall chroot [61]) (gdb) r Starting program: /tmp/catch-syscall Catchpoint 1 (call to syscall chroot), \

54

Debugging with gdb

0xffffe424 in __kernel_vsyscall () (gdb) c Continuing. Catchpoint 1 (returned from syscall chroot), \ 0xffffe424 in __kernel_vsyscall () (gdb)

An example of specifying a system call numerically. In the case below, the syscall number has a corresponding entry in the XML file, so gdb finds its name and prints it:
(gdb) catch syscall 252 Catchpoint 1 (syscall(s) exit_group) (gdb) r Starting program: /tmp/catch-syscall Catchpoint 1 (call to syscall exit_group), \ 0xffffe424 in __kernel_vsyscall () (gdb) c Continuing. Program exited normally. (gdb)

However, there can be situations when there is no corresponding name in XML file for that syscall number. In this case, gdb prints a warning message saying that it was not able to find the syscall name, but the catchpoint will be set anyway. See the example below:
(gdb) catch syscall 764 warning: The number 764 does not represent a known syscall. Catchpoint 2 (syscall 764) (gdb)

If you configure gdb using the --without-expat option, it will not be able to display syscall names. Also, if your architecture does not have an XML file describing its system calls, you will not be able to see the syscall names. It is important to notice that these two features are used for accessing the syscall name database. In either case, you will see a warning like this:
(gdb) catch syscall warning: Could not open "syscalls/[Link]" warning: Could not load the syscall XML file syscalls/[Link]. GDB will not be able to display syscall names. Catchpoint 1 (syscall) (gdb)

Of course, the file name will change depending on your architecture and system. Still using the example above, you can also try to catch a syscall by its number. In this case, you would see something like:
(gdb) catch syscall 252 Catchpoint 1 (syscall(s) 252)

Again, in this case gdb would not be able to display syscalls names.

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

55

fork vfork

A call to fork. This is currently only available for HP-UX and gnu/Linux. A call to vfork. This is currently only available for HP-UX and gnu/Linux.

tcatch event Set a catchpoint that is enabled only for one stop. The catchpoint is automatically deleted after the first time the event is caught. Use the info break command to list the current catchpoints. There are currently some limitations to C++ exception handling (catch throw and catch catch) in gdb: If you call a function interactively, gdb normally returns control to you when the function has finished executing. If the call raises an exception, however, the call may bypass the mechanism that returns control to you and cause your program either to abort or to simply continue running until it hits a breakpoint, catches a signal that gdb is listening for, or exits. This is the case even if you set a catchpoint for the exception; catchpoints on exceptions are disabled within interactive calls. You cannot raise an exception interactively. You cannot install an exception handler interactively. Sometimes catch is not the best way to debug exception handling: if you need to know exactly where an exception is raised, it is better to stop before the exception handler is called, since that way you can see the stack before any unwinding takes place. If you set a breakpoint in an exception handler instead, it may not be easy to find out where the exception was raised. To stop just before an exception handler is called, you need some knowledge of the implementation. In the case of gnu C++, exceptions are raised by calling a library function named __raise_exception which has the following ANSI C interface:
/* addr is where the exception identifier is stored. id is the exception identifier. */ void __raise_exception (void **addr, void *id);

To make the debugger catch all exceptions before any stack unwinding takes place, set a breakpoint on __raise_exception (see Section 5.1 [Breakpoints; Watchpoints; and Exceptions], page 43). With a conditional breakpoint (see Section 5.1.6 [Break Conditions], page 57) that depends on the value of id, you can stop your program when a specific exception is raised. You can use multiple conditional breakpoints to stop your program when any of a number of exceptions are raised.

5.1.4 Deleting Breakpoints

It is often necessary to eliminate a breakpoint, watchpoint, or catchpoint once it has done its job and you no longer want your program to stop there. This is called deleting the breakpoint. A breakpoint that has been deleted no longer exists; it is forgotten. With the clear command you can delete breakpoints according to where they are in your program. With the delete command you can delete individual breakpoints, watchpoints, or catchpoints by specifying their breakpoint numbers.

56

Debugging with gdb

It is not necessary to delete a breakpoint to proceed past it. gdb automatically ignores breakpoints on the first instruction to be executed when you continue execution without changing the execution address. clear Delete any breakpoints at the next instruction to be executed in the selected stack frame (see Section 8.3 [Selecting a Frame], page 84). When the innermost frame is selected, this is a good way to delete a breakpoint where your program just stopped.

clear location Delete any breakpoints set at the specified location. See Section 9.2 [Specify Location], page 88, for the various forms of location; the most useful ones are listed below: clear function clear filename:function Delete any breakpoints set at entry to the named function. clear linenum clear filename:linenum Delete any breakpoints set at or within the code of the specified linenum of the specified filename. delete [breakpoints] [range...] Delete the breakpoints, watchpoints, or catchpoints of the breakpoint ranges specified as arguments. If no argument is specified, delete all breakpoints (gdb asks confirmation, unless you have set confirm off). You can abbreviate this command as d.

5.1.5 Disabling Breakpoints

Rather than deleting a breakpoint, watchpoint, or catchpoint, you might prefer to disable it. This makes the breakpoint inoperative as if it had been deleted, but remembers the information on the breakpoint so that you can enable it again later. You disable and enable breakpoints, watchpoints, and catchpoints with the enable and disable commands, optionally specifying one or more breakpoint numbers as arguments. Use info break to print a list of all breakpoints, watchpoints, and catchpoints if you do not know which numbers to use. Disabling and enabling a breakpoint that has multiple locations affects all of its locations. A breakpoint, watchpoint, or catchpoint can have any of four different states of enablement: Enabled. The breakpoint stops your program. A breakpoint set with the break command starts out in this state. Disabled. The breakpoint has no effect on your program. Enabled once. The breakpoint stops your program, but then becomes disabled. Enabled for deletion. The breakpoint stops your program, but immediately after it does so it is deleted permanently. A breakpoint set with the tbreak command starts out in this state.

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

57

You can use the following commands to enable or disable breakpoints, watchpoints, and catchpoints: disable [breakpoints] [range...] Disable the specified breakpointsor all breakpoints, if none are listed. A disabled breakpoint has no effect but is not forgotten. All options such as ignore-counts, conditions and commands are remembered in case the breakpoint is enabled again later. You may abbreviate disable as dis. enable [breakpoints] [range...] Enable the specified breakpoints (or all defined breakpoints). They become effective once again in stopping your program. enable [breakpoints] once range... Enable the specified breakpoints temporarily. gdb disables any of these breakpoints immediately after stopping your program. enable [breakpoints] delete range... Enable the specified breakpoints to work once, then die. gdb deletes any of these breakpoints as soon as your program stops there. Breakpoints set by the tbreak command start out in this state. Except for a breakpoint set with tbreak (see Section 5.1.1 [Setting Breakpoints], page 44), breakpoints that you set are initially enabled; subsequently, they become disabled or enabled only when you use one of the commands above. (The command until can set and delete a breakpoint of its own, but it does not change the state of your other breakpoints; see Section 5.2 [Continuing and Stepping], page 61.)

5.1.6 Break Conditions

The simplest sort of breakpoint breaks every time your program reaches a specified place. You can also specify a condition for a breakpoint. A condition is just a Boolean expression in your programming language (see Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97). A breakpoint with a condition evaluates the expression each time your program reaches it, and your program stops only if the condition is true. This is the converse of using assertions for program validation; in that situation, you want to stop when the assertion is violatedthat is, when the condition is false. In C, if you want to test an assertion expressed by the condition assert, you should set the condition ! assert on the appropriate breakpoint. Conditions are also accepted for watchpoints; you may not need them, since a watchpoint is inspecting the value of an expression anyhowbut it might be simpler, say, to just set a watchpoint on a variable name, and specify a condition that tests whether the new value is an interesting one. Break conditions can have side effects, and may even call functions in your program. This can be useful, for example, to activate functions that log program progress, or to use your own print functions to format special data structures. The effects are completely predictable unless there is another enabled breakpoint at the same address. (In that case, gdb might see the other breakpoint first and stop your program without checking the condition of this one.) Note that breakpoint commands are usually more convenient and flexible than

58

Debugging with gdb

break conditions for the purpose of performing side effects when a breakpoint is reached (see Section 5.1.7 [Breakpoint Command Lists], page 59). Break conditions can be specified when a breakpoint is set, by using if in the arguments to the break command. See Section 5.1.1 [Setting Breakpoints], page 44. They can also be changed at any time with the condition command. You can also use the if keyword with the watch command. The catch command does not recognize the if keyword; condition is the only way to impose a further condition on a catchpoint. condition bnum expression Specify expression as the break condition for breakpoint, watchpoint, or catchpoint number bnum. After you set a condition, breakpoint bnum stops your program only if the value of expression is true (nonzero, in C). When you use condition, gdb checks expression immediately for syntactic correctness, and to determine whether symbols in it have referents in the context of your breakpoint. If expression uses symbols not referenced in the context of the breakpoint, gdb prints an error message:
No symbol "foo" in current context.

gdb does not actually evaluate expression at the time the condition command (or a command that sets a breakpoint with a condition, like break if ...) is given, however. See Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97. condition bnum Remove the condition from breakpoint number bnum. It becomes an ordinary unconditional breakpoint. A special case of a breakpoint condition is to stop only when the breakpoint has been reached a certain number of times. This is so useful that there is a special way to do it, using the ignore count of the breakpoint. Every breakpoint has an ignore count, which is an integer. Most of the time, the ignore count is zero, and therefore has no effect. But if your program reaches a breakpoint whose ignore count is positive, then instead of stopping, it just decrements the ignore count by one and continues. As a result, if the ignore count value is n, the breakpoint does not stop the next n times your program reaches it. ignore bnum count Set the ignore count of breakpoint number bnum to count. The next count times the breakpoint is reached, your programs execution does not stop; other than to decrement the ignore count, gdb takes no action. To make the breakpoint stop the next time it is reached, specify a count of zero. When you use continue to resume execution of your program from a breakpoint, you can specify an ignore count directly as an argument to continue, rather than using ignore. See Section 5.2 [Continuing and Stepping], page 61. If a breakpoint has a positive ignore count and a condition, the condition is not checked. Once the ignore count reaches zero, gdb resumes checking the condition. You could achieve the effect of the ignore count with a condition such as $foo-- <= 0 using a debugger convenience variable that is decremented each time. See Section 10.11 [Convenience Variables], page 117.

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

59

Ignore counts apply to breakpoints, watchpoints, and catchpoints.

5.1.7 Breakpoint Command Lists

You can give any breakpoint (or watchpoint or catchpoint) a series of commands to execute when your program stops due to that breakpoint. For example, you might want to print the values of certain expressions, or enable other breakpoints. commands [range...] ... command-list ... end Specify a list of commands for the given breakpoints. The commands themselves appear on the following lines. Type a line containing just end to terminate the commands. To remove all commands from a breakpoint, type commands and follow it immediately with end; that is, give no commands. With no argument, commands refers to the last breakpoint, watchpoint, or catchpoint set (not to the breakpoint most recently encountered). If the most recent breakpoints were set with a single command, then the commands will apply to all the breakpoints set by that command. This applies to breakpoints set by rbreak, and also applies when a single break command creates multiple breakpoints (see Section 10.2 [Ambiguous Expressions], page 98). Pressing RET as a means of repeating the last gdb command is disabled within a command-list. You can use breakpoint commands to start your program up again. Simply use the continue command, or step, or any other command that resumes execution. Any other commands in the command list, after a command that resumes execution, are ignored. This is because any time you resume execution (even with a simple next or step), you may encounter another breakpointwhich could have its own command list, leading to ambiguities about which list to execute. If the first command you specify in a command list is silent, the usual message about stopping at a breakpoint is not printed. This may be desirable for breakpoints that are to print a specific message and then continue. If none of the remaining commands print anything, you see no sign that the breakpoint was reached. silent is meaningful only at the beginning of a breakpoint command list. The commands echo, output, and printf allow you to print precisely controlled output, and are often useful in silent breakpoints. See Section 23.1.4 [Commands for Controlled Output], page 279. For example, here is how you could use breakpoint commands to print the value of x at entry to foo whenever x is positive.
break foo if x>0 commands silent printf "x is %d\n",x cont end

One application for breakpoint commands is to compensate for one bug so you can test for another. Put a breakpoint just after the erroneous line of code, give it a condition

60

Debugging with gdb

to detect the case in which something erroneous has been done, and give it commands to assign correct values to any variables that need them. End with the continue command so that your program does not stop, and start with the silent command so that no output is produced. Here is an example:
break 403 commands silent set x = y + 4 cont end

5.1.8 How to save breakpoints to a file

To save breakpoint definitions to a file use the save breakpoints command. save breakpoints [filename] This command saves all current breakpoint definitions together with their commands and ignore counts, into a file filename suitable for use in a later debugging session. This includes all types of breakpoints (breakpoints, watchpoints, catchpoints, tracepoints). To read the saved breakpoint definitions, use the source command (see Section 23.1.3 [Command Files], page 278). Note that watchpoints with expressions involving local variables may fail to be recreated because it may not be possible to access the context where the watchpoint is valid anymore. Because the saved breakpoint definitions are simply a sequence of gdb commands that recreate the breakpoints, you can edit the file in your favorite editing program, and remove the breakpoint definitions youre not interested in, or that can no longer be recreated.

5.1.9 Cannot insert breakpoints

If you request too many active hardware-assisted breakpoints and watchpoints, you will see this error message:
Stopped; cannot insert breakpoints. You may have requested too many hardware breakpoints and watchpoints.

This message is printed when you attempt to resume the program, since only then gdb knows exactly how many hardware breakpoints and watchpoints it needs to insert. When this message is printed, you need to disable or remove some of the hardwareassisted breakpoints and watchpoints, and then continue.

5.1.10 Breakpoint address adjusted...

Some processor architectures place constraints on the addresses at which breakpoints may be placed. For architectures thus constrained, gdb will attempt to adjust the breakpoints address to comply with the constraints dictated by the architecture. One example of such an architecture is the Fujitsu FR-V. The FR-V is a VLIW architecture in which a number of RISC-like instructions may be bundled together for parallel execution. The FR-V architecture constrains the location of a breakpoint instruction within such a bundle to the instruction with the lowest address. gdb honors this constraint by adjusting a breakpoints address to the first in the bundle. It is not uncommon for optimized code to have bundles which contain instructions from different source statements, thus it may happen that a breakpoints address will be adjusted

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

61

from one source statement to another. Since this adjustment may significantly alter gdbs breakpoint related behavior from what the user expects, a warning is printed when the breakpoint is first set and also when the breakpoint is hit. A warning like the one below is printed when setting a breakpoint thats been subject to address adjustment:
warning: Breakpoint address adjusted from 0x00010414 to 0x00010410.

Such warnings are printed both for user settable and gdbs internal breakpoints. If you see one of these warnings, you should verify that a breakpoint set at the adjusted address will have the desired affect. If not, the breakpoint in question may be removed and other breakpoints may be set which will have the desired behavior. E.g., it may be sufficient to place the breakpoint at a later instruction. A conditional breakpoint may also be useful in some cases to prevent the breakpoint from triggering too often. gdb will also issue a warning when stopping at one of these adjusted breakpoints:
warning: Breakpoint 1 address previously adjusted from 0x00010414 to 0x00010410.

When this warning is encountered, it may be too late to take remedial action except in cases where the breakpoint is hit earlier or more frequently than expected.

5.2 Continuing and Stepping

Continuing means resuming program execution until your program completes normally. In contrast, stepping means executing just one more step of your program, where step may mean either one line of source code, or one machine instruction (depending on what particular command you use). Either when continuing or when stepping, your program may stop even sooner, due to a breakpoint or a signal. (If it stops due to a signal, you may want to use handle, or use signal 0 to resume execution. See Section 5.4 [Signals], page 66.) continue [ignore-count] c [ignore-count] fg [ignore-count] Resume program execution, at the address where your program last stopped; any breakpoints set at that address are bypassed. The optional argument ignore-count allows you to specify a further number of times to ignore a breakpoint at this location; its effect is like that of ignore (see Section 5.1.6 [Break Conditions], page 57). The argument ignore-count is meaningful only when your program stopped due to a breakpoint. At other times, the argument to continue is ignored. The synonyms c and fg (for foreground, as the debugged program is deemed to be the foreground program) are provided purely for convenience, and have exactly the same behavior as continue. To resume execution at a different place, you can use return (see Section 17.4 [Returning from a Function], page 197) to go back to the calling function; or jump (see Section 17.2 [Continuing at a Different Address], page 196) to go to an arbitrary location in your program. A typical technique for using stepping is to set a breakpoint (see Section 5.1 [Breakpoints; Watchpoints; and Catchpoints], page 43) at the beginning of the function or the section of your program where a problem is believed to lie, run your program until it stops at

62

Debugging with gdb

that breakpoint, and then step through the suspect area, examining the variables that are interesting, until you see the problem happen. step Continue running your program until control reaches a different source line, then stop it and return control to gdb. This command is abbreviated s. Warning: If you use the step command while control is within a function that was compiled without debugging information, execution proceeds until control reaches a function that does have debugging information. Likewise, it will not step into a function which is compiled without debugging information. To step through functions without debugging information, use the stepi command, described below. The step command only stops at the first instruction of a source line. This prevents the multiple stops that could otherwise occur in switch statements, for loops, etc. step continues to stop if a function that has debugging information is called within the line. In other words, step steps inside any functions called within the line. Also, the step command only enters a function if there is line number information for the function. Otherwise it acts like the next command. This avoids problems when using cc -gl on MIPS machines. Previously, step entered subroutines if there was any debugging information about the routine. step count Continue running as in step, but do so count times. If a breakpoint is reached, or a signal not related to stepping occurs before count steps, stepping stops right away. next [count] Continue to the next source line in the current (innermost) stack frame. This is similar to step, but function calls that appear within the line of code are executed without stopping. Execution stops when control reaches a different line of code at the original stack level that was executing when you gave the next command. This command is abbreviated n. An argument count is a repeat count, as for step. The next command only stops at the first instruction of a source line. This prevents multiple stops that could otherwise occur in switch statements, for loops, etc. set step-mode set step-mode on The set step-mode on command causes the step command to stop at the first instruction of a function which contains no debug line information rather than stepping over it. This is useful in cases where you may be interested in inspecting the machine instructions of a function which has no symbolic info and do not want gdb to automatically skip over this function.

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

63

set step-mode off Causes the step command to step over any functions which contains no debug information. This is the default. show step-mode Show whether gdb will stop in or step over functions without source line debug information. finish Continue running until just after function in the selected stack frame returns. Print the returned value (if any). This command can be abbreviated as fin. Contrast this with the return command (see Section 17.4 [Returning from a Function], page 197). Continue running until a source line past the current line, in the current stack frame, is reached. This command is used to avoid single stepping through a loop more than once. It is like the next command, except that when until encounters a jump, it automatically continues execution until the program counter is greater than the address of the jump. This means that when you reach the end of a loop after single stepping though it, until makes your program continue execution until it exits the loop. In contrast, a next command at the end of a loop simply steps back to the beginning of the loop, which forces you to step through the next iteration. until always stops your program if it attempts to exit the current stack frame. until may produce somewhat counterintuitive results if the order of machine code does not match the order of the source lines. For example, in the following excerpt from a debugging session, the f (frame) command shows that execution is stopped at line 206; yet when we use until, we get to line 195:
(gdb) f #0 main (argc=4, argv=0xf7fffae8) at m4.c:206 206 expand_input(); (gdb) until 195 for ( ; argc > 0; NEXTARG) {

until u

This happened because, for execution efficiency, the compiler had generated code for the loop closure test at the end, rather than the start, of the loop even though the test in a C for-loop is written before the body of the loop. The until command appeared to step back to the beginning of the loop when it advanced to this expression; however, it has not really gone to an earlier statementnot in terms of the actual machine code. until with no argument works by means of single instruction stepping, and hence is slower than until with an argument. until location u location Continue running your program until either the specified location is reached, or the current stack frame returns. location is any of the forms described in Section 9.2 [Specify Location], page 88. This form of the command uses temporary breakpoints, and hence is quicker than until without an argument. The specified location is actually reached only if it is in the current frame. This

64

Debugging with gdb

implies that until can be used to skip over recursive function invocations. For instance in the code below, if the current location is line 96, issuing until 99 will execute the program up to line 99 in the same invocation of factorial, i.e., after the inner invocations have returned.
94 int 95 { 96 97 98 99 100 factorial (int value) if (value > 1) { value *= factorial (value - 1); } return (value); }

advance location Continue running the program up to the given location. An argument is required, which should be of one of the forms described in Section 9.2 [Specify Location], page 88. Execution will also stop upon exit from the current stack frame. This command is similar to until, but advance will not skip over recursive function calls, and the target location doesnt have to be in the same frame as the current one. stepi stepi arg si Execute one machine instruction, then stop and return to the debugger. It is often useful to do display/i $pc when stepping by machine instructions. This makes gdb automatically display the next instruction to be executed, each time your program stops. See Section 10.7 [Automatic Display], page 105. An argument is a repeat count, as in step. nexti nexti arg ni Execute one machine instruction, but if it is a function call, proceed until the function returns. An argument is a repeat count, as in next.

5.3 Skipping Over Functions and Files

The program you are debugging may contain some functions which are uninteresting to debug. The skip comand lets you tell gdb to skip a function or all functions in a file when stepping. For example, consider the following C function:
101 102 103 104 105 int func() { foo(boring()); bar(boring()); }

Suppose you wish to step into the functions foo and bar, but you are not interested in stepping through boring. If you run step at line 103, youll enter boring(), but if you run next, youll step over both foo and boring! One solution is to step into boring and use the finish command to immediately exit it. But this can become tedious if boring is called from many places.

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

65

A more flexible solution is to execute skip boring. This instructs gdb never to step into boring. Now when you execute step at line 103, youll step over boring and directly into foo. You can also instruct gdb to skip all functions in a file, with, for example, skip file boring.c. skip [linespec] skip function [linespec] After running this command, the function named by linespec or the function containing the line named by linespec will be skipped over when stepping. See Section 9.2 [Specify Location], page 88. If you do not specify linespec, the function youre currently debugging will be skipped. (If you have a function called file that you want to skip, use skip function file.) skip file [filename] After running this command, any function whose source lives in filename will be skipped over when stepping. If you do not specify filename, functions whose source lives in the file youre currently debugging will be skipped. Skips can be listed, deleted, disabled, and enabled, much like breakpoints. These are the commands for managing your list of skips: info skip [range] Print details about the specified skip(s). If range is not specified, print a table with details about all functions and files marked for skipping. info skip prints the following information about each skip: Identifier Type A number identifying this skip. The type of this skip, either function or file.

Enabled or Disabled Enabled skips are marked with y. Disabled skips are marked with n. Address For function skips, this column indicates the address in memory of the function being skipped. If youve set a function skip on a function which has not yet been loaded, this field will contain <PENDING>. Once a shared library which has the function is loaded, info skip will show the functions address here. For file skips, this field contains the filename being skipped. For functions skips, this field contains the function name and its line number in the file where it is defined.

What

skip delete [range] Delete the specified skip(s). If range is not specified, delete all skips. skip enable [range] Enable the specified skip(s). If range is not specified, enable all skips.

66

Debugging with gdb

skip disable [range] Disable the specified skip(s). If range is not specified, disable all skips.

5.4 Signals
A signal is an asynchronous event that can happen in a program. The operating system defines the possible kinds of signals, and gives each kind a name and a number. For example, in Unix SIGINT is the signal a program gets when you type an interrupt character (often Ctrl-c); SIGSEGV is the signal a program gets from referencing a place in memory far away from all the areas in use; SIGALRM occurs when the alarm clock timer goes off (which happens only if your program has requested an alarm). Some signals, including SIGALRM, are a normal part of the functioning of your program. Others, such as SIGSEGV, indicate errors; these signals are fatal (they kill your program immediately) if the program has not specified in advance some other way to handle the signal. SIGINT does not indicate an error in your program, but it is normally fatal so it can carry out the purpose of the interrupt: to kill the program. gdb has the ability to detect any occurrence of a signal in your program. You can tell gdb in advance what to do for each kind of signal. Normally, gdb is set up to let the non-erroneous signals like SIGALRM be silently passed to your program (so as not to interfere with their role in the programs functioning) but to stop your program immediately whenever an error signal happens. You can change these settings with the handle command. info signals info handle Print a table of all the kinds of signals and how gdb has been told to handle each one. You can use this to see the signal numbers of all the defined types of signals. info signals sig Similar, but print information only about the specified signal number. info handle is an alias for info signals. handle signal [keywords...] Change the way gdb handles signal signal. signal can be the number of a signal or its name (with or without the SIG at the beginning); a list of signal numbers of the form low-high; or the word all, meaning all the known signals. Optional arguments keywords, described below, say what change to make. The keywords allowed by the handle command can be abbreviated. Their full names are: nostop stop print gdb should not stop your program when this signal happens. It may still print a message telling you that the signal has come in. gdb should stop your program when this signal happens. This implies the print keyword as well. gdb should print a message when this signal happens.

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

67

noprint

gdb should not mention the occurrence of the signal at all. This implies the nostop keyword as well.

pass noignore

gdb should allow your program to see this signal; your program can handle the signal, or else it may terminate if the signal is fatal and not handled. pass and noignore are synonyms.

nopass ignore

gdb should not allow your program to see this signal. nopass and ignore are synonyms.

When a signal stops your program, the signal is not visible to the program until you continue. Your program sees the signal then, if pass is in effect for the signal in question at that time. In other words, after gdb reports a signal, you can use the handle command with pass or nopass to control whether your program sees that signal when you continue.

The default is set to nostop, noprint, pass for non-erroneous signals such as SIGALRM, SIGWINCH and SIGCHLD, and to stop, print, pass for the erroneous signals.

You can also use the signal command to prevent your program from seeing a signal, or cause it to see a signal it normally would not see, or to give it any signal at any time. For example, if your program stopped due to some sort of memory reference error, you might store correct values into the erroneous variables and continue, hoping to see more execution; but your program would probably terminate immediately as a result of the fatal signal once it saw the signal. To prevent this, you can continue with signal 0. See Section 17.3 [Giving your Program a Signal], page 197.

On some targets, gdb can inspect extra signal information associated with the intercepted signal, before it is actually delivered to the program being debugged. This information is exported by the convenience variable $_siginfo, and consists of data that is passed by the kernel to the signal handler at the time of the receipt of a signal. The data type of the information itself is target dependent. You can see the data type using the ptype $_ siginfo command. On Unix systems, it typically corresponds to the standard siginfo_t type, as defined in the signal.h system header.

Heres an example, on a gnu/Linux system, printing the stray referenced address that raised a segmentation fault.

68

Debugging with gdb

(gdb) continue Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. 0x0000000000400766 in main () 69 *(int *)p = 0; (gdb) ptype $_siginfo type = struct { int si_signo; int si_errno; int si_code; union { int _pad[28]; struct {...} _kill; struct {...} _timer; struct {...} _rt; struct {...} _sigchld; struct {...} _sigfault; struct {...} _sigpoll; } _sifields; } (gdb) ptype $_siginfo._sifields._sigfault type = struct { void *si_addr; } (gdb) p $_siginfo._sifields._sigfault.si_addr $1 = (void *) 0x7ffff7ff7000

Depending on target support, $_siginfo may also be writable.

5.5 Stopping and Starting Multi-thread Programs

gdb supports debugging programs with multiple threads (see Section 4.10 [Debugging Programs with Multiple Threads], page 35). There are two modes of controlling execution of your program within the debugger. In the default mode, referred to as all-stop mode, when any thread in your program stops (for example, at a breakpoint or while being stepped), all other threads in the program are also stopped by gdb. On some targets, gdb also supports non-stop mode, in which other threads can continue to run freely while you examine the stopped thread in the debugger.

5.5.1 All-Stop Mode

In all-stop mode, whenever your program stops under gdb for any reason, all threads of execution stop, not just the current thread. This allows you to examine the overall state of the program, including switching between threads, without worrying that things may change underfoot. Conversely, whenever you restart the program, all threads start executing. This is true even when single-stepping with commands like step or next. In particular, gdb cannot single-step all threads in lockstep. Since thread scheduling is up to your debugging targets operating system (not controlled by gdb), other threads may execute more than one statement while the current thread completes a single step. Moreover, in general other threads stop in the middle of a statement, rather than at a clean statement boundary, when the program stops.

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

69

You might even find your program stopped in another thread after continuing or even single-stepping. This happens whenever some other thread runs into a breakpoint, a signal, or an exception before the first thread completes whatever you requested. Whenever gdb stops your program, due to a breakpoint or a signal, it automatically selects the thread where that breakpoint or signal happened. gdb alerts you to the context switch with a message such as [Switching to Thread n] to identify the thread. On some OSes, you can modify gdbs default behavior by locking the OS scheduler to allow only a single thread to run. set scheduler-locking mode Set the scheduler locking mode. If it is off, then there is no locking and any thread may run at any time. If on, then only the current thread may run when the inferior is resumed. The step mode optimizes for single-stepping; it prevents other threads from preempting the current thread while you are stepping, so that the focus of debugging does not change unexpectedly. Other threads only rarely (or never) get a chance to run when you step. They are more likely to run when you next over a function call, and they are completely free to run when you use commands like continue, until, or finish. However, unless another thread hits a breakpoint during its timeslice, gdb does not change the current thread away from the thread that you are debugging. show scheduler-locking Display the current scheduler locking mode. By default, when you issue one of the execution commands such as continue, next or step, gdb allows only threads of the current inferior to run. For example, if gdb is attached to two inferiors, each with two threads, the continue command resumes only the two threads of the current inferior. This is useful, for example, when you debug a program that forks and you want to hold the parent stopped (so that, for instance, it doesnt run to exit), while you debug the child. In other situations, you may not be interested in inspecting the current state of any of the processes gdb is attached to, and you may want to resume them all until some breakpoint is hit. In the latter case, you can instruct gdb to allow all threads of all the inferiors to run with the set schedule-multiple command. set schedule-multiple Set the mode for allowing threads of multiple processes to be resumed when an execution command is issued. When on, all threads of all processes are allowed to run. When off, only the threads of the current process are resumed. The default is off. The scheduler-locking mode takes precedence when set to on, or while you are stepping and set to step. show schedule-multiple Display the current mode for resuming the execution of threads of multiple processes.

5.5.2 Non-Stop Mode

For some multi-threaded targets, gdb supports an optional mode of operation in which you can examine stopped program threads in the debugger while other threads continue to execute freely. This minimizes intrusion when debugging live systems, such as programs

70

Debugging with gdb

where some threads have real-time constraints or must continue to respond to external events. This is referred to as non-stop mode. In non-stop mode, when a thread stops to report a debugging event, only that thread is stopped; gdb does not stop other threads as well, in contrast to the all-stop mode behavior. Additionally, execution commands such as continue and step apply by default only to the current thread in non-stop mode, rather than all threads as in all-stop mode. This allows you to control threads explicitly in ways that are not possible in all-stop mode for example, stepping one thread while allowing others to run freely, stepping one thread while holding all others stopped, or stepping several threads independently and simultaneously. To enter non-stop mode, use this sequence of commands before you run or attach to your program:
# Enable the async interface. set target-async 1 # If using the CLI, pagination breaks non-stop. set pagination off # Finally, turn it on! set non-stop on

You can use these commands to manipulate the non-stop mode setting: set non-stop on Enable selection of non-stop mode. set non-stop off Disable selection of non-stop mode. show non-stop Show the current non-stop enablement setting. Note these commands only reflect whether non-stop mode is enabled, not whether the currently-executing program is being run in non-stop mode. In particular, the set nonstop preference is only consulted when gdb starts or connects to the target program, and it is generally not possible to switch modes once debugging has started. Furthermore, since not all targets support non-stop mode, even when you have enabled non-stop mode, gdb may still fall back to all-stop operation by default. In non-stop mode, all execution commands apply only to the current thread by default. That is, continue only continues one thread. To continue all threads, issue continue -a or c -a. You can use gdbs background execution commands (see Section 5.5.3 [Background Execution], page 71) to run some threads in the background while you continue to examine or step others from gdb. The MI execution commands (see Section 27.14 [GDB/MI Program Execution], page 363) are always executed asynchronously in non-stop mode. Suspending execution is done with the interrupt command when running in the background, or Ctrl-c during foreground execution. In all-stop mode, this stops the whole process; but in non-stop mode the interrupt applies only to the current thread. To stop the whole program, use interrupt -a. Other execution commands do not currently support the -a option.

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

71

In non-stop mode, when a thread stops, gdb doesnt automatically make that thread current, as it does in all-stop mode. This is because the thread stop notifications are asynchronous with respect to gdbs command interpreter, and it would be confusing if gdb unexpectedly changed to a different thread just as you entered a command to operate on the previously current thread.

5.5.3 Background Execution

gdbs execution commands have two variants: the normal foreground (synchronous) behavior, and a background (asynchronous) behavior. In foreground execution, gdb waits for the program to report that some thread has stopped before prompting for another command. In background execution, gdb immediately gives a command prompt so that you can issue other commands while your program runs. You need to explicitly enable asynchronous mode before you can use background execution commands. You can use these commands to manipulate the asynchronous mode setting: set target-async on Enable asynchronous mode. set target-async off Disable asynchronous mode. show target-async Show the current target-async setting. If the target doesnt support async mode, gdb issues an error message if you attempt to use the background execution commands. To specify background execution, add a & to the command. For example, the background form of the continue command is continue&, or just c&. The execution commands that accept background execution are: run attach step stepi next nexti continue finish until See Section 4.2 [Starting your Program], page 26. See Section 4.7 [Debugging an Already-running Process], page 31. See Section 5.2 [Continuing and Stepping], page 61. See Section 5.2 [Continuing and Stepping], page 61. See Section 5.2 [Continuing and Stepping], page 61. See Section 5.2 [Continuing and Stepping], page 61. See Section 5.2 [Continuing and Stepping], page 61. See Section 5.2 [Continuing and Stepping], page 61. See Section 5.2 [Continuing and Stepping], page 61.

Background execution is especially useful in conjunction with non-stop mode for debugging programs with multiple threads; see Section 5.5.2 [Non-Stop Mode], page 69. However, you can also use these commands in the normal all-stop mode with the restriction that you cannot issue another execution command until the previous one finishes. Examples of commands that are valid in all-stop mode while the program is running include help and info break.

72

Debugging with gdb

You can interrupt your program while it is running in the background by using the interrupt command. interrupt interrupt -a Suspend execution of the running program. In all-stop mode, interrupt stops the whole process, but in non-stop mode, it stops only the current thread. To stop the whole program in non-stop mode, use interrupt -a.

5.5.4 Thread-Specific Breakpoints

When your program has multiple threads (see Section 4.10 [Debugging Programs with Multiple Threads], page 35), you can choose whether to set breakpoints on all threads, or on a particular thread. break linespec thread threadno break linespec thread threadno if ... linespec specifies source lines; there are several ways of writing them (see Section 9.2 [Specify Location], page 88), but the effect is always to specify some source line. Use the qualifier thread threadno with a breakpoint command to specify that you only want gdb to stop the program when a particular thread reaches this breakpoint. threadno is one of the numeric thread identifiers assigned by gdb, shown in the first column of the info threads display. If you do not specify thread threadno when you set a breakpoint, the breakpoint applies to all threads of your program. You can use the thread qualifier on conditional breakpoints as well; in this case, place thread threadno before or after the breakpoint condition, like this:
(gdb) break frik.c:13 thread 28 if bartab > lim

5.5.5 Interrupted System Calls

There is an unfortunate side effect when using gdb to debug multi-threaded programs. If one thread stops for a breakpoint, or for some other reason, and another thread is blocked in a system call, then the system call may return prematurely. This is a consequence of the interaction between multiple threads and the signals that gdb uses to implement breakpoints and other events that stop execution. To handle this problem, your program should check the return value of each system call and react appropriately. This is good programming style anyways. For example, do not write code like this:
sleep (10);

The call to sleep will return early if a different thread stops at a breakpoint or for some other reason. Instead, write this:
int unslept = 10; while (unslept > 0) unslept = sleep (unslept);

Chapter 5: Stopping and Continuing

73

A system call is allowed to return early, so the system is still conforming to its specification. But gdb does cause your multi-threaded program to behave differently than it would without gdb. Also, gdb uses internal breakpoints in the thread library to monitor certain events such as thread creation and thread destruction. When such an event happens, a system call in another thread may return prematurely, even though your program does not appear to stop.

5.5.6 Observer Mode

If you want to build on non-stop mode and observe program behavior without any chance of disruption by gdb, you can set variables to disable all of the debuggers attempts to modify state, whether by writing memory, inserting breakpoints, etc. These operate at a low level, intercepting operations from all commands. When all of these are set to off, then gdb is said to be observer mode. As a convenience, the variable observer can be set to disable these, plus enable non-stop mode. Note that gdb will not prevent you from making nonsensical combinations of these settings. For instance, if you have enabled may-insert-breakpoints but disabled maywrite-memory, then breakpoints that work by writing trap instructions into the code stream will still not be able to be placed. set observer on set observer off When set to on, this disables all the permission variables below (except for insert-fast-tracepoints), plus enables non-stop debugging. Setting this to off switches back to normal debugging, though remaining in non-stop mode. show observer Show whether observer mode is on or off. set may-write-registers on set may-write-registers off This controls whether gdb will attempt to alter the values of registers, such as with assignment expressions in print, or the jump command. It defaults to on. show may-write-registers Show the current permission to write registers. set may-write-memory on set may-write-memory off This controls whether gdb will attempt to alter the contents of memory, such as with assignment expressions in print. It defaults to on. show may-write-memory Show the current permission to write memory. set may-insert-breakpoints on set may-insert-breakpoints off This controls whether gdb will attempt to insert breakpoints. This affects all breakpoints, including internal breakpoints defined by gdb. It defaults to on.

74

Debugging with gdb

show may-insert-breakpoints Show the current permission to insert breakpoints. set may-insert-tracepoints on set may-insert-tracepoints off This controls whether gdb will attempt to insert (regular) tracepoints at the beginning of a tracing experiment. It affects only non-fast tracepoints, fast tracepoints being under the control of may-insert-fast-tracepoints. It defaults to on. show may-insert-tracepoints Show the current permission to insert tracepoints. set may-insert-fast-tracepoints on set may-insert-fast-tracepoints off This controls whether gdb will attempt to insert fast tracepoints at the beginning of a tracing experiment. It affects only fast tracepoints, regular (non-fast) tracepoints being under the control of may-insert-tracepoints. It defaults to on. show may-insert-fast-tracepoints Show the current permission to insert fast tracepoints. set may-interrupt on set may-interrupt off This controls whether gdb will attempt to interrupt or stop program execution. When this variable is off, the interrupt command will have no effect, nor will Ctrl-c. It defaults to on. show may-interrupt Show the current permission to interrupt or stop the program.

Chapter 6: Running programs backward

75

6 Running programs backward

When you are debugging a program, it is not unusual to realize that you have gone too far, and some event of interest has already happened. If the target environment supports it, gdb can allow you to rewind the program by running it backward. A target environment that supports reverse execution should be able to undo the changes in machine state that have taken place as the program was executing normally. Variables, registers etc. should revert to their previous values. Obviously this requires a great deal of sophistication on the part of the target environment; not all target environments can support reverse execution. When a program is executed in reverse, the instructions that have most recently been executed are un-executed, in reverse order. The program counter runs backward, following the previous thread of execution in reverse. As each instruction is un-executed, the values of memory and/or registers that were changed by that instruction are reverted to their previous states. After executing a piece of source code in reverse, all side effects of that code should be undone, and all variables should be returned to their prior values1 . If you are debugging in a target environment that supports reverse execution, gdb provides the following commands. reverse-continue [ignore-count] rc [ignore-count] Beginning at the point where your program last stopped, start executing in reverse. Reverse execution will stop for breakpoints and synchronous exceptions (signals), just like normal execution. Behavior of asynchronous signals depends on the target environment. reverse-step [count] Run the program backward until control reaches the start of a different source line; then stop it, and return control to gdb. Like the step command, reverse-step will only stop at the beginning of a source line. It un-executes the previously executed source line. If the previous source line included calls to debuggable functions, reverse-step will step (backward) into the called function, stopping at the beginning of the last statement in the called function (typically a return statement). Also, as with the step command, if non-debuggable functions are called, reverse-step will run thru them backward without stopping. reverse-stepi [count] Reverse-execute one machine instruction. Note that the instruction to be reverse-executed is not the one pointed to by the program counter, but the
1

Note that some side effects are easier to undo than others. For instance, memory and registers are relatively easy, but device I/O is hard. Some targets may be able undo things like device I/O, and some may not. The contract between gdb and the reverse executing target requires only that the target do something reasonable when gdb tells it to execute backwards, and then report the results back to gdb. Whatever the target reports back to gdb, gdb will report back to the user. gdb assumes that the memory and registers that the target reports are in a consistant state, but gdb accepts whatever it is given.

76

Debugging with gdb

instruction executed prior to that one. For instance, if the last instruction was a jump, reverse-stepi will take you back from the destination of the jump to the jump instruction itself. reverse-next [count] Run backward to the beginning of the previous line executed in the current (innermost) stack frame. If the line contains function calls, they will be unexecuted without stopping. Starting from the first line of a function, reversenext will take you back to the caller of that function, before the function was called, just as the normal next command would take you from the last line of a function back to its return to its caller2 . reverse-nexti [count] Like nexti, reverse-nexti executes a single instruction in reverse, except that called functions are un-executed atomically. That is, if the previously executed instruction was a return from another function, reverse-nexti will continue to execute in reverse until the call to that function (from the current stack frame) is reached. reverse-finish Just as the finish command takes you to the point where the current function returns, reverse-finish takes you to the point where it was called. Instead of ending up at the end of the current function invocation, you end up at the beginning. set exec-direction Set the direction of target execution. set exec-direction reverse gdb will perform all execution commands in reverse, until the exec-direction mode is changed to forward. Affected commands include step, stepi, next, nexti, continue, and finish. The return command cannot be used in reverse mode. set exec-direction forward gdb will perform all execution commands in the normal fashion. This is the default.

Unless the code is too heavily optimized.

Chapter 7: Recording Inferiors Execution and Replaying It

77

7 Recording Inferiors Execution and Replaying It

On some platforms, gdb provides a special process record and replay target that can record a log of the process execution, and replay it later with both forward and reverse execution commands. When this target is in use, if the execution log includes the record for the next instruction, gdb will debug in replay mode. In the replay mode, the inferior does not really execute code instructions. Instead, all the events that normally happen during code execution are taken from the execution log. While code is not really executed in replay mode, the values of registers (including the program counter register) and the memory of the inferior are still changed as they normally would. Their contents are taken from the execution log. If the record for the next instruction is not in the execution log, gdb will debug in record mode. In this mode, the inferior executes normally, and gdb records the execution log for future replay. The process record and replay target supports reverse execution (see Chapter 6 [Reverse Execution], page 75), even if the platform on which the inferior runs does not. However, the reverse execution is limited in this case by the range of the instructions recorded in the execution log. In other words, reverse execution on platforms that dont support it directly can only be done in the replay mode. When debugging in the reverse direction, gdb will work in replay mode as long as the execution log includes the record for the previous instruction; otherwise, it will work in record mode, if the platform supports reverse execution, or stop if not. For architecture environments that support process record and replay, gdb provides the following commands: target record This command starts the process record and replay target. The process record and replay target can only debug a process that is already running. Therefore, you need first to start the process with the run or start commands, and then start the recording with the target record command. Both record and rec are aliases of target record. Displaced stepping (see Appendix D [displaced stepping], page 457) will be automatically disabled when process record and replay target is started. Thats because the process record and replay target doesnt support displaced stepping. If the inferior is in the non-stop mode (see Section 5.5.2 [Non-Stop Mode], page 69) or in the asynchronous execution mode (see Section 5.5.3 [Background Execution], page 71), the process record and replay target cannot be started because it doesnt support these two modes. record stop Stop the process record and replay target. When process record and replay target stops, the entire execution log will be deleted and the inferior will either be terminated, or will remain in its final state. When you stop the process record and replay target in record mode (at the end of the execution log), the inferior will be stopped at the next instruction that would have been recorded. In other words, if you record for a while and

78

Debugging with gdb

then stop recording, the inferior process will be left in the same state as if the recording never happened. On the other hand, if the process record and replay target is stopped while in replay mode (that is, not at the end of the execution log, but at some earlier point), the inferior process will become live at that earlier state, and it will then be possible to continue the usual live debugging of the process from that state. When the inferior process exits, or gdb detaches from it, process record and replay target will automatically stop itself. record save filename Save the execution log to a file filename. Default filename is gdb_record.process_id, where process id is the process ID of the inferior. record restore filename Restore the execution log from a file filename. File must have been created with record save. set record insn-number-max limit Set the limit of instructions to be recorded. Default value is 200000. If limit is a positive number, then gdb will start deleting instructions from the log once the number of the record instructions becomes greater than limit. For every new recorded instruction, gdb will delete the earliest recorded instruction to keep the number of recorded instructions at the limit. (Since deleting recorded instructions loses information, gdb lets you control what happens when the limit is reached, by means of the stop-at-limit option, described below.) If limit is zero, gdb will never delete recorded instructions from the execution log. The number of recorded instructions is unlimited in this case. show record insn-number-max Show the limit of instructions to be recorded. set record stop-at-limit Control the behavior when the number of recorded instructions reaches the limit. If ON (the default), gdb will stop when the limit is reached for the first time and ask you whether you want to stop the inferior or continue running it and recording the execution log. If you decide to continue recording, each new recorded instruction will cause the oldest one to be deleted. If this option is OFF, gdb will automatically delete the oldest record to make room for each new one, without asking. show record stop-at-limit Show the current setting of stop-at-limit. set record memory-query Control the behavior when gdb is unable to record memory changes caused by an instruction. If ON, gdb will query whether to stop the inferior in that case. If this option is OFF (the default), gdb will automatically ignore the effect of such instructions on memory. Later, when gdb replays this execution log, it

Chapter 7: Recording Inferiors Execution and Replaying It

79

will mark the log of this instruction as not accessible, and it will not affect the replay results. show record memory-query Show the current setting of memory-query. info record Show various statistics about the state of process record and its in-memory execution log buffer, including: Whether in record mode or replay mode. Lowest recorded instruction number (counting from when the current execution log started recording instructions). Highest recorded instruction number. Current instruction about to be replayed (if in replay mode). Number of instructions contained in the execution log. Maximum number of instructions that may be contained in the execution log. record delete When record target runs in replay mode (in the past), delete the subsequent execution log and begin to record a new execution log starting from the current address. This means you will abandon the previously recorded future and begin recording a new future.

Chapter 8: Examining the Stack

81

8 Examining the Stack

When your program has stopped, the first thing you need to know is where it stopped and how it got there. Each time your program performs a function call, information about the call is generated. That information includes the location of the call in your program, the arguments of the call, and the local variables of the function being called. The information is saved in a block of data called a stack frame. The stack frames are allocated in a region of memory called the call stack. When your program stops, the gdb commands for examining the stack allow you to see all of this information. One of the stack frames is selected by gdb and many gdb commands refer implicitly to the selected frame. In particular, whenever you ask gdb for the value of a variable in your program, the value is found in the selected frame. There are special gdb commands to select whichever frame you are interested in. See Section 8.3 [Selecting a Frame], page 84. When your program stops, gdb automatically selects the currently executing frame and describes it briefly, similar to the frame command (see Section 8.4 [Information about a Frame], page 85).

8.1 Stack Frames

The call stack is divided up into contiguous pieces called stack frames, or frames for short; each frame is the data associated with one call to one function. The frame contains the arguments given to the function, the functions local variables, and the address at which the function is executing. When your program is started, the stack has only one frame, that of the function main. This is called the initial frame or the outermost frame. Each time a function is called, a new frame is made. Each time a function returns, the frame for that function invocation is eliminated. If a function is recursive, there can be many frames for the same function. The frame for the function in which execution is actually occurring is called the innermost frame. This is the most recently created of all the stack frames that still exist. Inside your program, stack frames are identified by their addresses. A stack frame consists of many bytes, each of which has its own address; each kind of computer has a convention for choosing one byte whose address serves as the address of the frame. Usually this address is kept in a register called the frame pointer register (see Section 10.12 [Registers], page 119) while execution is going on in that frame. gdb assigns numbers to all existing stack frames, starting with zero for the innermost frame, one for the frame that called it, and so on upward. These numbers do not really exist in your program; they are assigned by gdb to give you a way of designating stack frames in gdb commands. Some compilers provide a way to compile functions so that they operate without stack frames. (For example, the gcc option
-fomit-frame-pointer

generates functions without a frame.) This is occasionally done with heavily used library functions to save the frame setup time. gdb has limited facilities for dealing with

82

Debugging with gdb

these function invocations. If the innermost function invocation has no stack frame, gdb nevertheless regards it as though it had a separate frame, which is numbered zero as usual, allowing correct tracing of the function call chain. However, gdb has no provision for frameless functions elsewhere in the stack. frame args The frame command allows you to move from one stack frame to another, and to print the stack frame you select. args may be either the address of the frame or the stack frame number. Without an argument, frame prints the current stack frame. select-frame The select-frame command allows you to move from one stack frame to another without printing the frame. This is the silent version of frame.

8.2 Backtraces
A backtrace is a summary of how your program got where it is. It shows one line per frame, for many frames, starting with the currently executing frame (frame zero), followed by its caller (frame one), and on up the stack. backtrace bt Print a backtrace of the entire stack: one line per frame for all frames in the stack. You can stop the backtrace at any time by typing the system interrupt character, normally Ctrl-c. backtrace n bt n Similar, but print only the innermost n frames. backtrace -n bt -n Similar, but print only the outermost n frames. backtrace full bt full bt full n bt full -n Print the values of the local variables also. n specifies the number of frames to print, as described above. The names where and info stack (abbreviated info s) are additional aliases for backtrace. In a multi-threaded program, gdb by default shows the backtrace only for the current thread. To display the backtrace for several or all of the threads, use the command thread apply (see Section 4.10 [Threads], page 35). For example, if you type thread apply all backtrace, gdb will display the backtrace for all the threads; this is handy when you debug a core dump of a multi-threaded program. Each line in the backtrace shows the frame number and the function name. The program counter value is also shownunless you use set print address off. The backtrace also shows the source file name and line number, as well as the arguments to the function. The program counter value is omitted if it is at the beginning of the code for that line number.

Chapter 8: Examining the Stack

83

Here is an example of a backtrace. It was made with the command bt 3, so it shows the innermost three frames.
m4_traceon (obs=0x24eb0, argc=1, argv=0x2b8c8) at builtin.c:993 #1 0x6e38 in expand_macro (sym=0x2b600, data=...) at macro.c:242 #2 0x6840 in expand_token (obs=0x0, t=177664, td=0xf7fffb08) at macro.c:71 (More stack frames follow...) #0

The display for frame zero does not begin with a program counter value, indicating that your program has stopped at the beginning of the code for line 993 of builtin.c. The value of parameter data in frame 1 has been replaced by .... By default, gdb prints the value of a parameter only if it is a scalar (integer, pointer, enumeration, etc). See command set print frame-arguments in Section 10.8 [Print Settings], page 106 for more details on how to configure the way function parameter values are printed. If your program was compiled with optimizations, some compilers will optimize away arguments passed to functions if those arguments are never used after the call. Such optimizations generate code that passes arguments through registers, but doesnt store those arguments in the stack frame. gdb has no way of displaying such arguments in stack frames other than the innermost one. Heres what such a backtrace might look like:
m4_traceon (obs=0x24eb0, argc=1, argv=0x2b8c8) at builtin.c:993 #1 0x6e38 in expand_macro (sym=<optimized out>) at macro.c:242 #2 0x6840 in expand_token (obs=0x0, t=<optimized out>, td=0xf7fffb08) at macro.c:71 (More stack frames follow...) #0

The values of arguments that were not saved in their stack frames are shown as <optimized out>. If you need to display the values of such optimized-out arguments, either deduce that from other variables whose values depend on the one you are interested in, or recompile without optimizations. Most programs have a standard user entry pointa place where system libraries and startup code transition into user code. For C this is main1 . When gdb finds the entry function in a backtrace it will terminate the backtrace, to avoid tracing into highly systemspecific (and generally uninteresting) code. If you need to examine the startup code, or limit the number of levels in a backtrace, you can change this behavior: set backtrace past-main set backtrace past-main on Backtraces will continue past the user entry point. set backtrace past-main off Backtraces will stop when they encounter the user entry point. This is the default. show backtrace past-main Display the current user entry point backtrace policy.
1

Note that embedded programs (the so-called free-standing environment) are not required to have a main function as the entry point. They could even have multiple entry points.

84

Debugging with gdb

set backtrace past-entry set backtrace past-entry on Backtraces will continue past the internal entry point of an application. This entry point is encoded by the linker when the application is built, and is likely before the user entry point main (or equivalent) is called. set backtrace past-entry off Backtraces will stop when they encounter the internal entry point of an application. This is the default. show backtrace past-entry Display the current internal entry point backtrace policy. set backtrace limit n set backtrace limit 0 Limit the backtrace to n levels. A value of zero means unlimited. show backtrace limit Display the current limit on backtrace levels.

8.3 Selecting a Frame

Most commands for examining the stack and other data in your program work on whichever stack frame is selected at the moment. Here are the commands for selecting a stack frame; all of them finish by printing a brief description of the stack frame just selected. frame n fn Select frame number n. Recall that frame zero is the innermost (currently executing) frame, frame one is the frame that called the innermost one, and so on. The highest-numbered frame is the one for main.

frame addr f addr Select the frame at address addr. This is useful mainly if the chaining of stack frames has been damaged by a bug, making it impossible for gdb to assign numbers properly to all frames. In addition, this can be useful when your program has multiple stacks and switches between them. On the SPARC architecture, frame needs two addresses to select an arbitrary frame: a frame pointer and a stack pointer. On the MIPS and Alpha architecture, it needs two addresses: a stack pointer and a program counter. On the 29k architecture, it needs three addresses: a register stack pointer, a program counter, and a memory stack pointer. up n Move n frames up the stack. For positive numbers n, this advances toward the outermost frame, to higher frame numbers, to frames that have existed longer. n defaults to one. Move n frames down the stack. For positive numbers n, this advances toward the innermost frame, to lower frame numbers, to frames that were created more recently. n defaults to one. You may abbreviate down as do.

down n

Chapter 8: Examining the Stack

85

All of these commands end by printing two lines of output describing the frame. The first line shows the frame number, the function name, the arguments, and the source file and line number of execution in that frame. The second line shows the text of that source line. For example:
(gdb) up #1 0x22f0 in main (argc=1, argv=0xf7fffbf4, env=0xf7fffbfc) at env.c:10 10 read_input_file (argv[i]);

After such a printout, the list command with no arguments prints ten lines centered on the point of execution in the frame. You can also edit the program at the point of execution with your favorite editing program by typing edit. See Section 9.1 [Printing Source Lines], page 87, for details. up-silently n down-silently n These two commands are variants of up and down, respectively; they differ in that they do their work silently, without causing display of the new frame. They are intended primarily for use in gdb command scripts, where the output might be unnecessary and distracting.

8.4 Information About a Frame

There are several other commands to print information about the selected stack frame. frame f When used without any argument, this command does not change which frame is selected, but prints a brief description of the currently selected stack frame. It can be abbreviated f. With an argument, this command is used to select a stack frame. See Section 8.3 [Selecting a Frame], page 84.

info frame info f This command prints a verbose description of the selected stack frame, including: the address of the frame the address of the next frame down (called by this frame) the address of the next frame up (caller of this frame) the language in which the source code corresponding to this frame is written the address of the frames arguments the address of the frames local variables the program counter saved in it (the address of execution in the caller frame) which registers were saved in the frame The verbose description is useful when something has gone wrong that has made the stack format fail to fit the usual conventions.

86

Debugging with gdb

info frame addr info f addr Print a verbose description of the frame at address addr, without selecting that frame. The selected frame remains unchanged by this command. This requires the same kind of address (more than one for some architectures) that you specify in the frame command. See Section 8.3 [Selecting a Frame], page 84. info args Print the arguments of the selected frame, each on a separate line. info locals Print the local variables of the selected frame, each on a separate line. These are all variables (declared either static or automatic) accessible at the point of execution of the selected frame. info catch Print a list of all the exception handlers that are active in the current stack frame at the current point of execution. To see other exception handlers, visit the associated frame (using the up, down, or frame commands); then type info catch. See Section 5.1.3 [Setting Catchpoints], page 52.

Chapter 9: Examining Source Files

87

9 Examining Source Files

gdb can print parts of your programs source, since the debugging information recorded in the program tells gdb what source files were used to build it. When your program stops, gdb spontaneously prints the line where it stopped. Likewise, when you select a stack frame (see Section 8.3 [Selecting a Frame], page 84), gdb prints the line where execution in that frame has stopped. You can print other portions of source files by explicit command. If you use gdb through its gnu Emacs interface, you may prefer to use Emacs facilities to view source; see Chapter 26 [Using gdb under gnu Emacs], page 335.

9.1 Printing Source Lines

To print lines from a source file, use the list command (abbreviated l). By default, ten lines are printed. There are several ways to specify what part of the file you want to print; see Section 9.2 [Specify Location], page 88, for the full list. Here are the forms of the list command most commonly used: list linenum Print lines centered around line number linenum in the current source file. list function Print lines centered around the beginning of function function. list Print more lines. If the last lines printed were printed with a list command, this prints lines following the last lines printed; however, if the last line printed was a solitary line printed as part of displaying a stack frame (see Chapter 8 [Examining the Stack], page 81), this prints lines centered around that line. Print lines just before the lines last printed.

list -

By default, gdb prints ten source lines with any of these forms of the list command. You can change this using set listsize: set listsize count Make the list command display count source lines (unless the list argument explicitly specifies some other number). show listsize Display the number of lines that list prints. Repeating a list command with RET discards the argument, so it is equivalent to typing just list. This is more useful than listing the same lines again. An exception is made for an argument of -; that argument is preserved in repetition so that each repetition moves up in the source file. In general, the list command expects you to supply zero, one or two linespecs. Linespecs specify source lines; there are several ways of writing them (see Section 9.2 [Specify Location], page 88), but the effect is always to specify some source line. Here is a complete description of the possible arguments for list: list linespec Print lines centered around the line specified by linespec.

88

Debugging with gdb

list first,last Print lines from first to last. Both arguments are linespecs. When a list command has two linespecs, and the source file of the second linespec is omitted, this refers to the same source file as the first linespec. list ,last Print lines ending with last. list first, Print lines starting with first. list + list list Print lines just after the lines last printed. Print lines just before the lines last printed. As described in the preceding table.

9.2 Specifying a Location

Several gdb commands accept arguments that specify a location of your programs code. Since gdb is a source-level debugger, a location usually specifies some line in the source code; for that reason, locations are also known as linespecs. Here are all the different ways of specifying a code location that gdb understands: linenum -offset +offset Specifies the line number linenum of the current source file. Specifies the line offset lines before or after the current line. For the list command, the current line is the last one printed; for the breakpoint commands, this is the line at which execution stopped in the currently selected stack frame (see Section 8.1 [Frames], page 81, for a description of stack frames.) When used as the second of the two linespecs in a list command, this specifies the line offset lines up or down from the first linespec.

filename:linenum Specifies the line linenum in the source file filename. function Specifies the line that begins the body of the function function. For example, in C, this is the line with the open brace.

function:label Specifies the line where label appears in function. filename:function Specifies the line that begins the body of the function function in the file filename. You only need the file name with a function name to avoid ambiguity when there are identically named functions in different source files. label Specifies the line at which the label named label appears. gdb searches for the label in the function corresponding to the currently selected stack frame. If there is no current selected stack frame (for instance, if the inferior is not running), then gdb will not search for a label.

Chapter 9: Examining Source Files

89

*address

Specifies the program address address. For line-oriented commands, such as list and edit, this specifies a source line that contains address. For break and other breakpoint oriented commands, this can be used to set breakpoints in parts of your program which do not have debugging information or source files. Here address may be any expression valid in the current working language (see Chapter 15 [Languages], page 161) that specifies a code address. In addition, as a convenience, gdb extends the semantics of expressions used in locations to cover the situations that frequently happen during debugging. Here are the various forms of address: expression Any expression valid in the current working language. funcaddr An address of a function or procedure derived from its name. In C, C++, Java, Objective-C, Fortran, minimal, and assembly, this is simply the functions name function (and actually a special case of a valid expression). In Pascal and Modula-2, this is &function. In Ada, this is functionAddress (although the Pascal form also works). This form specifies the address of the functions first instruction, before the stack frame and arguments have been set up. filename::funcaddr Like funcaddr above, but also specifies the name of the source file explicitly. This is useful if the name of the function does not specify the function unambiguously, e.g., if there are several functions with identical names in different source files.

9.3 Editing Source Files

To edit the lines in a source file, use the edit command. The editing program of your choice is invoked with the current line set to the active line in the program. Alternatively, there are several ways to specify what part of the file you want to print if you want to see other parts of the program: edit location Edit the source file specified by location. Editing starts at that location, e.g., at the specified source line of the specified file. See Section 9.2 [Specify Location], page 88, for all the possible forms of the location argument; here are the forms of the edit command most commonly used: edit number Edit the current source file with number as the active line number. edit function Edit the file containing function at the beginning of its definition.

90

Debugging with gdb

9.3.1 Choosing your Editor

You can customize gdb to use any editor you want1 . By default, it is /bin/ex, but you can change this by setting the environment variable EDITOR before using gdb. For example, to configure gdb to use the vi editor, you could use these commands with the sh shell:
EDITOR=/usr/bin/vi export EDITOR gdb ...

or in the csh shell,

setenv EDITOR /usr/bin/vi gdb ...

9.4 Searching Source Files

There are two commands for searching through the current source file for a regular expression. forward-search regexp search regexp The command forward-search regexp checks each line, starting with the one following the last line listed, for a match for regexp. It lists the line that is found. You can use the synonym search regexp or abbreviate the command name as fo. reverse-search regexp The command reverse-search regexp checks each line, starting with the one before the last line listed and going backward, for a match for regexp. It lists the line that is found. You can abbreviate this command as rev.

9.5 Specifying Source Directories

Executable programs sometimes do not record the directories of the source files from which they were compiled, just the names. Even when they do, the directories could be moved between the compilation and your debugging session. gdb has a list of directories to search for source files; this is called the source path. Each time gdb wants a source file, it tries all the directories in the list, in the order they are present in the list, until it finds a file with the desired name. For example, suppose an executable references the file /usr/src/foo-1.0/lib/foo.c, and our source path is /mnt/cross. The file is first looked up literally; if this fails, /mnt/cross/usr/src/foo-1.0/lib/foo.c is tried; if this fails, /mnt/cross/foo.c is opened; if this fails, an error message is printed. gdb does not look up the parts of the source file name, such as /mnt/cross/src/foo-1.0/lib/foo.c. Likewise, the subdirectories of the source path are not searched: if the source path is /mnt/cross, and the binary refers to foo.c, gdb would not find it under /mnt/cross/usr/src/foo-1.0/lib. Plain file names, relative file names with leading directories, file names containing dots, etc. are all treated as described above; for instance, if the source path is /mnt/cross, and
1

The only restriction is that your editor (say ex), recognizes the following command-line syntax: ex +number file The optional numeric value +number specifies the number of the line in the file where to start editing.

Chapter 9: Examining Source Files

91

the source file is recorded as ../lib/foo.c, gdb would first try ../lib/foo.c, then /mnt/cross/../lib/foo.c, and after that/mnt/cross/foo.c. Note that the executable search path is not used to locate the source files. Whenever you reset or rearrange the source path, gdb clears out any information it has cached about where source files are found and where each line is in the file. When you start gdb, its source path includes only cdir and cwd, in that order. To add other directories, use the directory command. The search path is used to find both program source files and gdb script files (read using the -command option and source command). In addition to the source path, gdb provides a set of commands that manage a list of source path substitution rules. A substitution rule specifies how to rewrite source directories stored in the programs debug information in case the sources were moved to a different directory between compilation and debugging. A rule is made of two strings, the first specifying what needs to be rewritten in the path, and the second specifying how it should be rewritten. In [set substitute-path], page 92, we name these two parts from and to respectively. gdb does a simple string replacement of from with to at the start of the directory part of the source file name, and uses that result instead of the original file name to look up the sources. Using the previous example, suppose the foo-1.0 tree has been moved from /usr/src to /mnt/cross, then you can tell gdb to replace /usr/src in all source path names with /mnt/cross. The first lookup will then be /mnt/cross/foo-1.0/lib/foo.c in place of the original location of /usr/src/foo-1.0/lib/foo.c. To define a source path substitution rule, use the set substitute-path command (see [set substitute-path], page 92). To avoid unexpected substitution results, a rule is applied only if the from part of the directory name ends at a directory separator. For instance, a rule substituting /usr/source into /mnt/cross will be applied to /usr/source/foo-1.0 but not to /usr/sourceware/foo-2.0. And because the substitution is applied only at the beginning of the directory name, this rule will not be applied to /root/usr/source/baz.c either. In many cases, you can achieve the same result using the directory command. However, set substitute-path can be more efficient in the case where the sources are organized in a complex tree with multiple subdirectories. With the directory command, you need to add each subdirectory of your project. If you moved the entire tree while preserving its internal organization, then set substitute-path allows you to direct the debugger to all the sources with one single command. set substitute-path is also more than just a shortcut command. The source path is only used if the file at the original location no longer exists. On the other hand, set substitute-path modifies the debugger behavior to look at the rewritten location instead. So, if for any reason a source file that is not relevant to your executable is located at the original location, a substitution rule is the only method available to point gdb at the new location. You can configure a default source path substitution rule by configuring gdb with the --with-relocated-sources=dir option. The dir should be the name of a directory under gdbs configured prefix (set with --prefix or --exec-prefix), and directory names in debug information under dir will be adjusted automatically if the installed gdb is moved

92

Debugging with gdb

to a new location. This is useful if gdb, libraries or executables with debug information and corresponding source code are being moved together. directory dirname ... dir dirname ... Add directory dirname to the front of the source path. Several directory names may be given to this command, separated by : (; on MS-DOS and MSWindows, where : usually appears as part of absolute file names) or whitespace. You may specify a directory that is already in the source path; this moves it forward, so gdb searches it sooner. You can use the string $cdir to refer to the compilation directory (if one is recorded), and $cwd to refer to the current working directory. $cwd is not the same as .the former tracks the current working directory as it changes during your gdb session, while the latter is immediately expanded to the current directory at the time you add an entry to the source path. directory Reset the source path to its default value ($cdir:$cwd on Unix systems). This requires confirmation. set directories path-list Set the source path to path-list. $cdir:$cwd are added if missing. show directories Print the source path: show which directories it contains. set substitute-path from to Define a source path substitution rule, and add it at the end of the current list of existing substitution rules. If a rule with the same from was already defined, then the old rule is also deleted. For example, if the file /foo/bar/baz.c was moved to /mnt/cross/baz.c, then the command
(gdb) set substitute-path /usr/src /mnt/cross

will tell gdb to replace /usr/src with /mnt/cross, which will allow gdb to find the file baz.c even though it was moved. In the case when more than one substitution rule have been defined, the rules are evaluated one by one in the order where they have been defined. The first one matching, if any, is selected to perform the substitution. For instance, if we had entered the following commands:
(gdb) set substitute-path /usr/src/include /mnt/include (gdb) set substitute-path /usr/src /mnt/src

gdb would then rewrite /usr/src/include/defs.h into /mnt/include/defs.h by using the first rule. However, it would use the second rule to rewrite /usr/src/lib/foo.c into /mnt/src/lib/foo.c. unset substitute-path [path] If a path is specified, search the current list of substitution rules for a rule that would rewrite that path. Delete that rule if found. A warning is emitted by the debugger if no rule could be found. If no path is specified, then all substitution rules are deleted.

Chapter 9: Examining Source Files

93

show substitute-path [path] If a path is specified, then print the source path substitution rule which would rewrite that path, if any. If no path is specified, then print all existing source path substitution rules. If your source path is cluttered with directories that are no longer of interest, gdb may sometimes cause confusion by finding the wrong versions of source. You can correct the situation as follows: 1. Use directory with no argument to reset the source path to its default value. 2. Use directory with suitable arguments to reinstall the directories you want in the source path. You can add all the directories in one command.

9.6 Source and Machine Code

You can use the command info line to map source lines to program addresses (and vice versa), and the command disassemble to display a range of addresses as machine instructions. You can use the command set disassemble-next-line to set whether to disassemble next source line when execution stops. When run under gnu Emacs mode, the info line command causes the arrow to point to the line specified. Also, info line prints addresses in symbolic form as well as hex. info line linespec Print the starting and ending addresses of the compiled code for source line linespec. You can specify source lines in any of the ways documented in Section 9.2 [Specify Location], page 88. For example, we can use info line to discover the location of the object code for the first line of function m4_changequote:
(gdb) info line m4_changequote Line 895 of "builtin.c" starts at pc 0x634c and ends at 0x6350.

We can also inquire (using *addr as the form for linespec) what source line covers a particular address:
(gdb) info line *0x63ff Line 926 of "builtin.c" starts at pc 0x63e4 and ends at 0x6404.

After info line, the default address for the x command is changed to the starting address of the line, so that x/i is sufficient to begin examining the machine code (see Section 10.6 [Examining Memory], page 103). Also, this address is saved as the value of the convenience variable $_ (see Section 10.11 [Convenience Variables], page 117). disassemble disassemble /m disassemble /r This specialized command dumps a range of memory as machine instructions. It can also print mixed source+disassembly by specifying the /m modifier and print the raw instructions in hex as well as in symbolic form by specifying the /r. The default memory range is the function surrounding the program counter of the selected frame. A single argument to this command is a program counter value; gdb dumps the function surrounding this value. When two arguments are given,

94

Debugging with gdb

they should be separated by a comma, possibly surrounded by whitespace. The arguments specify a range of addresses to dump, in one of two forms: start,end the addresses from start (inclusive) to end (exclusive) start,+length the addresses from start (inclusive) to start+length (exclusive). When 2 arguments are specified, the name of the function is also printed (since there could be several functions in the given range). The argument(s) can be any expression yielding a numeric value, such as 0x32c4, &main+10 or $pc - 8. If the range of memory being disassembled contains current program counter, the instruction at that location is shown with a => marker. The following example shows the disassembly of a range of addresses of HP PA-RISC 2.0 code:
(gdb) disas 0x32c4, 0x32e4 Dump of assembler code from 0x32c4 to 0x32e4: 0x32c4 <main+204>: addil 0,dp 0x32c8 <main+208>: ldw 0x22c(sr0,r1),r26 0x32cc <main+212>: ldil 0x3000,r31 0x32d0 <main+216>: ble 0x3f8(sr4,r31) 0x32d4 <main+220>: ldo 0(r31),rp 0x32d8 <main+224>: addil -0x800,dp 0x32dc <main+228>: ldo 0x588(r1),r26 0x32e0 <main+232>: ldil 0x3000,r31 End of assembler dump.

Here is an example showing mixed source+assembly for Intel x86, when the program is stopped just after function prologue:
(gdb) disas /m main Dump of assembler code 5 { 0x08048330 <+0>: 0x08048331 <+1>: 0x08048333 <+3>: 0x08048336 <+6>: 0x08048339 <+9>: for function main: push mov sub and sub %ebp %esp,%ebp $0x8,%esp $0xfffffff0,%esp $0x10,%esp

6 printf ("Hello.\n"); => 0x0804833c <+12>: movl $0x8048440,(%esp) 0x08048343 <+19>: call 0x8048284 <puts@plt> 7 8 return 0; } 0x08048348 <+24>: 0x0804834d <+29>: 0x0804834e <+30>:

mov leave ret

$0x0,%eax

End of assembler dump.

Here is another example showing raw instructions in hex for AMD x86-64,
(gdb) disas /r 0x400281,+10 Dump of assembler code from 0x400281 to 0x40028b:

Chapter 9: Examining Source Files

95

0x0000000000400281: 0x0000000000400283: 0x0000000000400288: 0x0000000000400289: End of assembler dump.

38 36 cmp %dh,(%rsi) 2d 36 34 2e 73 sub $0x732e3436,%eax 6f outsl %ds:(%rsi),(%dx) 2e 32 00 xor %cs:(%rax),%al

Some architectures have more than one commonly-used set of instruction mnemonics or other syntax. For programs that were dynamically linked and use shared libraries, instructions that call functions or branch to locations in the shared libraries might show a seemingly bogus locationits actually a location of the relocation table. On some architectures, gdb might be able to resolve these to actual function names. set disassembly-flavor instruction-set Select the instruction set to use when disassembling the program via the disassemble or x/i commands. Currently this command is only defined for the Intel x86 family. You can set instruction-set to either intel or att. The default is att, the AT&T flavor used by default by Unix assemblers for x86-based targets. show disassembly-flavor Show the current setting of the disassembly flavor. set disassemble-next-line show disassemble-next-line Control whether or not gdb will disassemble the next source line or instruction when execution stops. If ON, gdb will display disassembly of the next source line when execution of the program being debugged stops. This is in addition to displaying the source line itself, which gdb always does if possible. If the next source line cannot be displayed for some reason (e.g., if gdb cannot find the source file, or theres no line info in the debug info), gdb will display disassembly of the next instruction instead of showing the next source line. If AUTO, gdb will display disassembly of next instruction only if the source line cannot be displayed. This setting causes gdb to display some feedback when you step through a function with no line info or whose source file is unavailable. The default is OFF, which means never display the disassembly of the next line or instruction.

Chapter 10: Examining Data

97

10 Examining Data
The usual way to examine data in your program is with the print command (abbreviated p), or its synonym inspect. It evaluates and prints the value of an expression of the language your program is written in (see Chapter 15 [Using gdb with Different Languages], page 161). It may also print the expression using a Python-based pretty-printer (see Section 10.9 [Pretty Printing], page 114). print expr print /f expr expr is an expression (in the source language). By default the value of expr is printed in a format appropriate to its data type; you can choose a different format by specifying /f, where f is a letter specifying the format; see Section 10.5 [Output Formats], page 102. print print /f If you omit expr, gdb displays the last value again (from the value history; see Section 10.10 [Value History], page 116). This allows you to conveniently inspect the same value in an alternative format.

A more low-level way of examining data is with the x command. It examines data in memory at a specified address and prints it in a specified format. See Section 10.6 [Examining Memory], page 103. If you are interested in information about types, or about how the fields of a struct or a class are declared, use the ptype exp command rather than print. See Chapter 16 [Examining the Symbol Table], page 189.

10.1 Expressions
print and many other gdb commands accept an expression and compute its value. Any kind of constant, variable or operator defined by the programming language you are using is valid in an expression in gdb. This includes conditional expressions, function calls, casts, and string constants. It also includes preprocessor macros, if you compiled your program to include this information; see Section 4.1 [Compilation], page 25. gdb supports array constants in expressions input by the user. The syntax is {element, element. . . }. For example, you can use the command print {1, 2, 3} to create an array of three integers. If you pass an array to a function or assign it to a program variable, gdb copies the array to memory that is malloced in the target program. Because C is so widespread, most of the expressions shown in examples in this manual are in C. See Chapter 15 [Using gdb with Different Languages], page 161, for information on how to use expressions in other languages. In this section, we discuss operators that you can use in gdb expressions regardless of your programming language. Casts are supported in all languages, not just in C, because it is so useful to cast a number into a pointer in order to examine a structure at that address in memory. gdb supports these operators, in addition to those common to programming languages: @ @ is a binary operator for treating parts of memory as arrays. See Section 10.4 [Artificial Arrays], page 101, for more information.

98

Debugging with gdb

::

:: allows you to specify a variable in terms of the file or function where it is defined. See Section 10.3 [Program Variables], page 99.

{type} addr Refers to an object of type type stored at address addr in memory. addr may be any expression whose value is an integer or pointer (but parentheses are required around binary operators, just as in a cast). This construct is allowed regardless of what kind of data is normally supposed to reside at addr.

10.2 Ambiguous Expressions

Expressions can sometimes contain some ambiguous elements. For instance, some programming languages (notably Ada, C++ and Objective-C) permit a single function name to be defined several times, for application in different contexts. This is called overloading. Another example involving Ada is generics. A generic package is similar to C++ templates and is typically instantiated several times, resulting in the same function name being defined in different contexts. In some cases and depending on the language, it is possible to adjust the expression to remove the ambiguity. For instance in C++, you can specify the signature of the function you want to break on, as in break function(types). In Ada, using the fully qualified name of your function often makes the expression unambiguous as well. When an ambiguity that needs to be resolved is detected, the debugger has the capability to display a menu of numbered choices for each possibility, and then waits for the selection with the prompt >. The first option is always [0] cancel, and typing 0 RET aborts the current command. If the command in which the expression was used allows more than one choice to be selected, the next option in the menu is [1] all, and typing 1 RET selects all possible choices. For example, the following session excerpt shows an attempt to set a breakpoint at the overloaded symbol String::after. We choose three particular definitions of that function name:
(gdb) b String::after [0] cancel [1] all [2] file:[Link]; line number:867 [3] file:[Link]; line number:860 [4] file:[Link]; line number:875 [5] file:[Link]; line number:853 [6] file:[Link]; line number:846 [7] file:[Link]; line number:735 > 2 4 6 Breakpoint 1 at 0xb26c: file [Link], line 867. Breakpoint 2 at 0xb344: file [Link], line 875. Breakpoint 3 at 0xafcc: file [Link], line 846. Multiple breakpoints were set. Use the "delete" command to delete unwanted breakpoints. (gdb)

set multiple-symbols mode This option allows you to adjust the debugger behavior when an expression is ambiguous.

Chapter 10: Examining Data

99

By default, mode is set to all. If the command with which the expression is used allows more than one choice, then gdb automatically selects all possible choices. For instance, inserting a breakpoint on a function using an ambiguous name results in a breakpoint inserted on each possible match. However, if a unique choice must be made, then gdb uses the menu to help you disambiguate the expression. For instance, printing the address of an overloaded function will result in the use of the menu. When mode is set to ask, the debugger always uses the menu when an ambiguity is detected. Finally, when mode is set to cancel, the debugger reports an error due to the ambiguity and the command is aborted. show multiple-symbols Show the current value of the multiple-symbols setting.

10.3 Program Variables

The most common kind of expression to use is the name of a variable in your program. Variables in expressions are understood in the selected stack frame (see Section 8.3 [Selecting a Frame], page 84); they must be either: global (or file-static) or visible according to the scope rules of the programming language from the point of execution in that frame This means that in the function
foo (a) int a; { bar (a); { int b = test (); bar (b); } }

you can examine and use the variable a whenever your program is executing within the function foo, but you can only use or examine the variable b while your program is executing inside the block where b is declared. There is an exception: you can refer to a variable or function whose scope is a single source file even if the current execution point is not in this file. But it is possible to have more than one such variable or function with the same name (in different source files). If that happens, referring to that name has unpredictable effects. If you wish, you can specify a static variable in a particular function or file, using the colon-colon (::) notation:
file::variable function::variable

Here file or function is the name of the context for the static variable. In the case of file names, you can use quotes to make sure gdb parses the file name as a single wordfor example, to print a global value of x defined in f2.c:

100

Debugging with gdb

(gdb) p f2.c::x

This use of :: is very rarely in conflict with the very similar use of the same notation in C++. gdb also supports use of the C++ scope resolution operator in gdb expressions. Warning: Occasionally, a local variable may appear to have the wrong value at certain points in a functionjust after entry to a new scope, and just before exit. You may see this problem when you are stepping by machine instructions. This is because, on most machines, it takes more than one instruction to set up a stack frame (including local variable definitions); if you are stepping by machine instructions, variables may appear to have the wrong values until the stack frame is completely built. On exit, it usually also takes more than one machine instruction to destroy a stack frame; after you begin stepping through that group of instructions, local variable definitions may be gone. This may also happen when the compiler does significant optimizations. To be sure of always seeing accurate values, turn off all optimization when compiling. Another possible effect of compiler optimizations is to optimize unused variables out of existence, or assign variables to registers (as opposed to memory addresses). Depending on the support for such cases offered by the debug info format used by the compiler, gdb might not be able to display values for such local variables. If that happens, gdb will print a message like this:
No symbol "foo" in current context.

To solve such problems, either recompile without optimizations, or use a different debug info format, if the compiler supports several such formats. See Section 4.1 [Compilation], page 25, for more information on choosing compiler options. See Section 15.4.1 [C and C++], page 165, for more information about debug info formats that are best suited to C++ programs. If you ask to print an object whose contents are unknown to gdb, e.g., because its data type is not completely specified by the debug information, gdb will say <incomplete type>. See Chapter 16 [Symbols], page 189, for more about this. If you append @entry string to a function parameter name you get its value at the time the function got called. If the value is not available an error message is printed. Entry values are available only with some compilers. Entry values are normally also printed at the function parameter list according to [set print entry-values], page 109.
Breakpoint 1, d (i=30) at [Link]/entry-value.c:29 29 i++; (gdb) next 30 e (i); (gdb) print i $1 = 31 (gdb) print i@entry $2 = 30

Strings are identified as arrays of char values without specified signedness. Arrays of either signed char or unsigned char get printed as arrays of 1 byte sized integers. fsigned-char or -funsigned-char gcc options have no effect as gdb defines literal string type "char" as char without a sign. For program code
char var0[] = "A"; signed char var1[] = "A";

You get during debugging

Chapter 10: Examining Data

101

(gdb) print var0 $1 = "A" (gdb) print var1 $2 = {65 A, 0 \0}

10.4 Artificial Arrays

It is often useful to print out several successive objects of the same type in memory; a section of an array, or an array of dynamically determined size for which only a pointer exists in the program. You can do this by referring to a contiguous span of memory as an artificial array, using the binary operator @. The left operand of @ should be the first element of the desired array and be an individual object. The right operand should be the desired length of the array. The result is an array value whose elements are all of the type of the left argument. The first element is actually the left argument; the second element comes from bytes of memory immediately following those that hold the first element, and so on. Here is an example. If a program says
int *array = (int *) malloc (len * sizeof (int));

you can print the contents of array with

p *array@len

The left operand of @ must reside in memory. Array values made with @ in this way behave just like other arrays in terms of subscripting, and are coerced to pointers when used in expressions. Artificial arrays most often appear in expressions via the value history (see Section 10.10 [Value History], page 116), after printing one out. Another way to create an artificial array is to use a cast. This re-interprets a value as if it were an array. The value need not be in memory:
(gdb) p/x (short[2])0x12345678 $1 = {0x1234, 0x5678}

As a convenience, if you leave the array length out (as in (type[])value) gdb calculates the size to fill the value (as sizeof(value)/sizeof(type):
(gdb) p/x (short[])0x12345678 $2 = {0x1234, 0x5678}

Sometimes the artificial array mechanism is not quite enough; in moderately complex data structures, the elements of interest may not actually be adjacentfor example, if you are interested in the values of pointers in an array. One useful work-around in this situation is to use a convenience variable (see Section 10.11 [Convenience Variables], page 117) as a counter in an expression that prints the first interesting value, and then repeat that expression via RET. For instance, suppose you have an array dtab of pointers to structures, and you are interested in the values of a field fv in each structure. Here is an example of what you might type:
set $i = 0 p dtab[$i++]->fv RET RET ...

102

Debugging with gdb

10.5 Output Formats

By default, gdb prints a value according to its data type. Sometimes this is not what you want. For example, you might want to print a number in hex, or a pointer in decimal. Or you might want to view data in memory at a certain address as a character string or as an instruction. To do these things, specify an output format when you print a value. The simplest use of output formats is to say how to print a value already computed. This is done by starting the arguments of the print command with a slash and a format letter. The format letters supported are: x d u o t a Regard the bits of the value as an integer, and print the integer in hexadecimal. Print as integer in signed decimal. Print as integer in unsigned decimal. Print as integer in octal. Print as integer in binary. The letter t stands for two.1 Print as an address, both absolute in hexadecimal and as an offset from the nearest preceding symbol. You can use this format used to discover where (in what function) an unknown address is located:
(gdb) p/a 0x54320 $3 = 0x54320 <_initialize_vx+396>

The command info symbol 0x54320 yields similar results. See Chapter 16 [Symbols], page 189. c Regard as an integer and print it as a character constant. This prints both the numerical value and its character representation. The character representation is replaced with the octal escape \nnn for characters outside the 7-bit ascii range. Without this format, gdb displays char, unsigned char, and signed char data as character constants. Single-byte members of vectors are displayed as integer data. Regard the bits of the value as a floating point number and print using typical floating point syntax. Regard as a string, if possible. With this format, pointers to single-byte data are displayed as null-terminated strings and arrays of single-byte data are displayed as fixed-length strings. Other values are displayed in their natural types. Without this format, gdb displays pointers to and arrays of char, unsigned char, and signed char as strings. Single-byte members of a vector are displayed as an integer array. Print using the raw formatting. By default, gdb will use a Python-based pretty-printer, if one is available (see Section 10.9 [Pretty Printing], page 114). This typically results in a higher-level display of the values contents. The r format bypasses any Python pretty-printer which might exist.
1

f s

b cannot be used because these format letters are also used with the x command, where b stands for byte; see Section 10.6 [Examining Memory], page 103.

Chapter 10: Examining Data

103

For example, to print the program counter in hex (see Section 10.12 [Registers], page 119), type
p/x $pc

Note that no space is required before the slash; this is because command names in gdb cannot contain a slash. To reprint the last value in the value history with a different format, you can use the print command with just a format and no expression. For example, p/x reprints the last value in hex.

10.6 Examining Memory

You can use the command x (for examine) to examine memory in any of several formats, independently of your programs data types. x/nfu addr x addr x Use the x command to examine memory. n, f, and u are all optional parameters that specify how much memory to display and how to format it; addr is an expression giving the address where you want to start displaying memory. If you use defaults for nfu, you need not type the slash /. Several commands set convenient defaults for addr. n, the repeat count The repeat count is a decimal integer; the default is 1. It specifies how much memory (counting by units u) to display. f, the display format The display format is one of the formats used by print (x, d, u, o, t, a, c, f, s), and in addition i (for machine instructions). The default is x (hexadecimal) initially. The default changes each time you use either x or print. u, the unit size The unit size is any of b h w g Bytes. Halfwords (two bytes). Words (four bytes). This is the initial default. Giant words (eight bytes).

Each time you specify a unit size with x, that size becomes the default unit the next time you use x. For the i format, the unit size is ignored and is normally not written. For the s format, the unit size defaults to b, unless it is explicitly given. Use x /hs to display 16-bit char strings and x /ws to display 32-bit strings. The next use of x /s will again display 8-bit strings. Note that the results depend on the programming language of the current compilation unit. If the language is C, the s modifier will use the UTF-16 encoding while w will use UTF-32. The encoding is set by the programming language and cannot be altered.

104

Debugging with gdb

addr, starting display address addr is the address where you want gdb to begin displaying memory. The expression need not have a pointer value (though it may); it is always interpreted as an integer address of a byte of memory. See Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97, for more information on expressions. The default for addr is usually just after the last address examinedbut several other commands also set the default address: info breakpoints (to the address of the last breakpoint listed), info line (to the starting address of a line), and print (if you use it to display a value from memory). For example, x/3uh 0x54320 is a request to display three halfwords (h) of memory, formatted as unsigned decimal integers (u), starting at address 0x54320. x/4xw $sp prints the four words (w) of memory above the stack pointer (here, $sp; see Section 10.12 [Registers], page 119) in hexadecimal (x). Since the letters indicating unit sizes are all distinct from the letters specifying output formats, you do not have to remember whether unit size or format comes first; either order works. The output specifications 4xw and 4wx mean exactly the same thing. (However, the count n must come first; wx4 does not work.) Even though the unit size u is ignored for the formats s and i, you might still want to use a count n; for example, 3i specifies that you want to see three machine instructions, including any operands. For convenience, especially when used with the display command, the i format also prints branch delay slot instructions, if any, beyond the count specified, which immediately follow the last instruction that is within the count. The command disassemble gives an alternative way of inspecting machine instructions; see Section 9.6 [Source and Machine Code], page 93. All the defaults for the arguments to x are designed to make it easy to continue scanning memory with minimal specifications each time you use x. For example, after you have inspected three machine instructions with x/3i addr, you can inspect the next seven with just x/7. If you use RET to repeat the x command, the repeat count n is used again; the other arguments default as for successive uses of x. When examining machine instructions, the instruction at current program counter is shown with a => marker. For example:
(gdb) x/5i $pc-6 0x804837f <main+11>: 0x8048381 <main+13>: 0x8048382 <main+14>: => 0x8048385 <main+17>: 0x804838c <main+24>: mov push sub movl call %esp,%ebp %ecx $0x4,%esp $0x8048460,(%esp) 0x80482d4 <puts@plt>

The addresses and contents printed by the x command are not saved in the value history because there is often too much of them and they would get in the way. Instead, gdb makes these values available for subsequent use in expressions as values of the convenience variables $_ and $__. After an x command, the last address examined is available for use in expressions in the convenience variable $_. The contents of that address, as examined, are available in the convenience variable $__. If the x command has a repeat count, the address and contents saved are from the last memory unit printed; this is not the same as the last address printed if several units were printed on the last line of output.

Chapter 10: Examining Data

105

When you are debugging a program running on a remote target machine (see Chapter 20 [Remote Debugging], page 219), you may wish to verify the programs image in the remote machines memory against the executable file you downloaded to the target. The comparesections command is provided for such situations. compare-sections [section-name] Compare the data of a loadable section section-name in the executable file of the program being debugged with the same section in the remote machines memory, and report any mismatches. With no arguments, compares all loadable sections. This commands availability depends on the targets support for the "qCRC" remote request.

10.7 Automatic Display

If you find that you want to print the value of an expression frequently (to see how it changes), you might want to add it to the automatic display list so that gdb prints its value each time your program stops. Each expression added to the list is given a number to identify it; to remove an expression from the list, you specify that number. The automatic display looks like this:
2: foo = 38 3: bar[5] = (struct hack *) 0x3804

This display shows item numbers, expressions and their current values. As with displays you request manually using x or print, you can specify the output format you prefer; in fact, display decides whether to use print or x depending your format specificationit uses x if you specify either the i or s format, or a unit size; otherwise it uses print. display expr Add the expression expr to the list of expressions to display each time your program stops. See Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97. display does not repeat if you press RET again after using it. display/fmt expr For fmt specifying only a display format and not a size or count, add the expression expr to the auto-display list but arrange to display it each time in the specified format fmt. See Section 10.5 [Output Formats], page 102. display/fmt addr For fmt i or s, or including a unit-size or a number of units, add the expression addr as a memory address to be examined each time your program stops. Examining means in effect doing x/fmt addr. See Section 10.6 [Examining Memory], page 103. For example, display/i $pc can be helpful, to see the machine instruction about to be executed each time execution stops ($pc is a common name for the program counter; see Section 10.12 [Registers], page 119). undisplay dnums... delete display dnums... Remove items from the list of expressions to display. Specify the numbers of the displays that you want affected with the command argument dnums. It can

106

Debugging with gdb

be a single display number, one of the numbers shown in the first field of the info display display; or it could be a range of display numbers, as in 2-4. undisplay does not repeat if you press RET after using it. (Otherwise you would just get the error No display number ....) disable display dnums... Disable the display of item numbers dnums. A disabled display item is not printed automatically, but is not forgotten. It may be enabled again later. Specify the numbers of the displays that you want affected with the command argument dnums. It can be a single display number, one of the numbers shown in the first field of the info display display; or it could be a range of display numbers, as in 2-4. enable display dnums... Enable display of item numbers dnums. It becomes effective once again in auto display of its expression, until you specify otherwise. Specify the numbers of the displays that you want affected with the command argument dnums. It can be a single display number, one of the numbers shown in the first field of the info display display; or it could be a range of display numbers, as in 2-4. display Display the current values of the expressions on the list, just as is done when your program stops.

info display Print the list of expressions previously set up to display automatically, each one with its item number, but without showing the values. This includes disabled expressions, which are marked as such. It also includes expressions which would not be displayed right now because they refer to automatic variables not currently available. If a display expression refers to local variables, then it does not make sense outside the lexical context for which it was set up. Such an expression is disabled when execution enters a context where one of its variables is not defined. For example, if you give the command display last_char while inside a function with an argument last_char, gdb displays this argument while your program continues to stop inside that function. When it stops elsewherewhere there is no variable last_charthe display is disabled automatically. The next time your program stops where last_char is meaningful, you can enable the display expression once again.

10.8 Print Settings

gdb provides the following ways to control how arrays, structures, and symbols are printed. These settings are useful for debugging programs in any language: set print address set print address on gdb prints memory addresses showing the location of stack traces, structure values, pointer values, breakpoints, and so forth, even when it also displays the contents of those addresses. The default is on. For example, this is what a stack frame display looks like with set print address on:

Chapter 10: Examining Data

107

(gdb) f #0 set_quotes (lq=0x34c78 "<<", rq=0x34c88 ">>") at input.c:530 530 if (lquote != def_lquote)

set print address off Do not print addresses when displaying their contents. For example, this is the same stack frame displayed with set print address off:
(gdb) set print addr off (gdb) f #0 set_quotes (lq="<<", rq=">>") at input.c:530 530 if (lquote != def_lquote)

You can use set print address off to eliminate all machine dependent displays from the gdb interface. For example, with print address off, you should get the same text for backtraces on all machineswhether or not they involve pointer arguments. show print address Show whether or not addresses are to be printed. When gdb prints a symbolic address, it normally prints the closest earlier symbol plus an offset. If that symbol does not uniquely identify the address (for example, it is a name whose scope is a single source file), you may need to clarify. One way to do this is with info line, for example info line *0x4537. Alternately, you can set gdb to print the source file and line number when it prints a symbolic address: set print symbol-filename on Tell gdb to print the source file name and line number of a symbol in the symbolic form of an address. set print symbol-filename off Do not print source file name and line number of a symbol. This is the default. show print symbol-filename Show whether or not gdb will print the source file name and line number of a symbol in the symbolic form of an address. Another situation where it is helpful to show symbol filenames and line numbers is when disassembling code; gdb shows you the line number and source file that corresponds to each instruction. Also, you may wish to see the symbolic form only if the address being printed is reasonably close to the closest earlier symbol: set print max-symbolic-offset max-offset Tell gdb to only display the symbolic form of an address if the offset between the closest earlier symbol and the address is less than max-offset. The default is 0, which tells gdb to always print the symbolic form of an address if any symbol precedes it. show print max-symbolic-offset Ask how large the maximum offset is that gdb prints in a symbolic address. If you have a pointer and you are not sure where it points, try set print symbol-filename on. Then you can determine the name and source file location of the

108

Debugging with gdb

variable where it points, using p/a pointer. This interprets the address in symbolic form. For example, here gdb shows that a variable ptt points at another variable t, defined in hi2.c:
(gdb) set print symbol-filename on (gdb) p/a ptt $4 = 0xe008 <t in hi2.c>

Warning: For pointers that point to a local variable, p/a does not show the symbol name and filename of the referent, even with the appropriate set print options turned on. Other settings control how different kinds of objects are printed: set print array set print array on Pretty print arrays. This format is more convenient to read, but uses more space. The default is off. set print array off Return to compressed format for arrays. show print array Show whether compressed or pretty format is selected for displaying arrays. set print array-indexes set print array-indexes on Print the index of each element when displaying arrays. May be more convenient to locate a given element in the array or quickly find the index of a given element in that printed array. The default is off. set print array-indexes off Stop printing element indexes when displaying arrays. show print array-indexes Show whether the index of each element is printed when displaying arrays. set print elements number-of-elements Set a limit on how many elements of an array gdb will print. If gdb is printing a large array, it stops printing after it has printed the number of elements set by the set print elements command. This limit also applies to the display of strings. When gdb starts, this limit is set to 200. Setting number-of-elements to zero means that the printing is unlimited. show print elements Display the number of elements of a large array that gdb will print. If the number is 0, then the printing is unlimited. set print frame-arguments value This command allows to control how the values of arguments are printed when the debugger prints a frame (see Section 8.1 [Frames], page 81). The possible values are: all The values of all arguments are printed.

Chapter 10: Examining Data

109

scalars

Print the value of an argument only if it is a scalar. The value of more complex arguments such as arrays, structures, unions, etc, is replaced by .... This is the default. Here is an example where only scalar arguments are shown:
#1 0x08048361 in call_me (i=3, s=..., ss=0xbf8d508c, u=..., e=green) at frame-args.c:23

none

None of the argument values are printed. Instead, the value of each argument is replaced by .... In this case, the example above now becomes:
#1 0x08048361 in call_me (i=..., s=..., ss=..., u=..., e=...) at frame-args.c:23

By default, only scalar arguments are printed. This command can be used to configure the debugger to print the value of all arguments, regardless of their type. However, it is often advantageous to not print the value of more complex parameters. For instance, it reduces the amount of information printed in each frame, making the backtrace more readable. Also, it improves performance when displaying Ada frames, because the computation of large arguments can sometimes be CPU-intensive, especially in large applications. Setting print frame-arguments to scalars (the default) or none avoids this computation, thus speeding up the display of each Ada frame. show print frame-arguments Show how the value of arguments should be displayed when printing a frame. set print entry-values value Set printing of frame argument values at function entry. In some cases gdb can determine the value of function argument which was passed by the function caller, even if the value was modified inside the called function and therefore is different. With optimized code, the current value could be unavailable, but the entry value may still be known. The default value is default (see below for its description). Older gdb behaved as with the setting no. Compilers not supporting this feature will behave in the default setting the same way as with the no setting. This functionality is currently supported only by DWARF 2 debugging format and the compiler has to produce DW_TAG_GNU_call_site tags. With gcc, you need to specify -O -g during compilation, to get this information. The value parameter can be one of the following: no Print only actual parameter values, never print values from function entry point.
#0 #0 #0 #0 #0 equal (val=5) different (val=6) lost (val=<optimized out>) born (val=10) invalid (val=<optimized out>)

only

Print only parameter values from function entry point. The actual parameter values are never printed.

110

Debugging with gdb

#0 #0 #0 #0 #0

equal (val@entry=5) different (val@entry=5) lost (val@entry=5) born (val@entry=<optimized out>) invalid (val@entry=<optimized out>)

preferred Print only parameter values from function entry point. If value from function entry point is not known while the actual value is known, print the actual value for such parameter.
#0 #0 #0 #0 #0 equal (val@entry=5) different (val@entry=5) lost (val@entry=5) born (val=10) invalid (val@entry=<optimized out>)

if-needed Print actual parameter values. If actual parameter value is not known while value from function entry point is known, print the entry point value for such parameter.
#0 #0 #0 #0 #0 equal (val=5) different (val=6) lost (val@entry=5) born (val=10) invalid (val=<optimized out>)

both

Always print both the actual parameter value and its value from function entry point, even if values of one or both are not available due to compiler optimizations.
#0 #0 #0 #0 #0 equal (val=5, val@entry=5) different (val=6, val@entry=5) lost (val=<optimized out>, val@entry=5) born (val=10, val@entry=<optimized out>) invalid (val=<optimized out>, val@entry=<optimized out>)

compact

Print the actual parameter value if it is known and also its value from function entry point if it is known. If neither is known, print for the actual value <optimized out>. If not in MI mode (see Chapter 27 [GDB/MI], page 337) and if both values are known and identical, print the shortened param=param@entry=VALUE notation.
#0 #0 #0 #0 #0 equal (val=val@entry=5) different (val=6, val@entry=5) lost (val@entry=5) born (val=10) invalid (val=<optimized out>)

default

Always print the actual parameter value. Print also its value from function entry point, but only if it is known. If not in MI mode (see Chapter 27 [GDB/MI], page 337) and if both values are known and identical, print the shortened param=param@entry=VALUE notation.
#0 #0 #0 #0 #0 equal (val=val@entry=5) different (val=6, val@entry=5) lost (val=<optimized out>, val@entry=5) born (val=10) invalid (val=<optimized out>)

Chapter 10: Examining Data

111

For analysis messages on possible failures of frame argument values at function entry resolution see [set debug entry-values], page 132. show print entry-values Show the method being used for printing of frame argument values at function entry. set print repeats Set the threshold for suppressing display of repeated array elements. When the number of consecutive identical elements of an array exceeds the threshold, gdb prints the string "<repeats n times>", where n is the number of identical repetitions, instead of displaying the identical elements themselves. Setting the threshold to zero will cause all elements to be individually printed. The default threshold is 10. show print repeats Display the current threshold for printing repeated identical elements. set print null-stop Cause gdb to stop printing the characters of an array when the first null is encountered. This is useful when large arrays actually contain only short strings. The default is off. show print null-stop Show whether gdb stops printing an array on the first null character. set print pretty on Cause gdb to print structures in an indented format with one member per line, like this:
$1 = { next = 0x0, flags = { sweet = 1, sour = 1 }, meat = 0x54 "Pork" }

set print pretty off Cause gdb to print structures in a compact format, like this:
$1 = {next = 0x0, flags = {sweet = 1, sour = 1}, \ meat = 0x54 "Pork"}

This is the default format. show print pretty Show which format gdb is using to print structures. set print sevenbit-strings on Print using only seven-bit characters; if this option is set, gdb displays any eight-bit characters (in strings or character values) using the notation \nnn. This setting is best if you are working in English (ascii) and you use the highorder bit of characters as a marker or meta bit.

112

Debugging with gdb

set print sevenbit-strings off Print full eight-bit characters. This allows the use of more international character sets, and is the default. show print sevenbit-strings Show whether or not gdb is printing only seven-bit characters. set print union on Tell gdb to print unions which are contained in structures and other unions. This is the default setting. set print union off Tell gdb not to print unions which are contained in structures and other unions. gdb will print "{...}" instead. show print union Ask gdb whether or not it will print unions which are contained in structures and other unions. For example, given the declarations
typedef enum {Tree, Bug} Species; typedef enum {Big_tree, Acorn, Seedling} Tree_forms; typedef enum {Caterpillar, Cocoon, Butterfly} Bug_forms; struct thing { Species it; union { Tree_forms tree; Bug_forms bug; } form; }; struct thing foo = {Tree, {Acorn}};

with set print union on in effect p foo would print

$1 = {it = Tree, form = {tree = Acorn, bug = Cocoon}}

and with set print union off in effect it would print

$1 = {it = Tree, form = {...}}

set print union affects programs written in C-like languages and in Pascal. These settings are of interest when debugging C++ programs: set print demangle set print demangle on Print C++ names in their source form rather than in the encoded (mangled) form passed to the assembler and linker for type-safe linkage. The default is on. show print demangle Show whether C++ names are printed in mangled or demangled form. set print asm-demangle set print asm-demangle on Print C++ names in their source form rather than their mangled form, even in assembler code printouts such as instruction disassemblies. The default is off.

Chapter 10: Examining Data

113

show print asm-demangle Show whether C++ names in assembly listings are printed in mangled or demangled form. set demangle-style style Choose among several encoding schemes used by different compilers to represent C++ names. The choices for style are currently: auto gnu hp lucid arm Allow gdb to choose a decoding style by inspecting your program. Decode based on the gnu C++ compiler (g++) encoding algorithm. This is the default. Decode based on the HP ANSI C++ (aCC) encoding algorithm. Decode based on the Lucid C++ compiler (lcc) encoding algorithm. Decode using the algorithm in the C++ Annotated Reference Manual. Warning: this setting alone is not sufficient to allow debugging cfront-generated executables. gdb would require further enhancement to permit that.

If you omit style, you will see a list of possible formats. show demangle-style Display the encoding style currently in use for decoding C++ symbols. set print object set print object on When displaying a pointer to an object, identify the actual (derived) type of the object rather than the declared type, using the virtual function table. Note that the virtual function table is requiredthis feature can only work for objects that have run-time type identification; a single virtual method in the objects declared type is sufficient. set print object off Display only the declared type of objects, without reference to the virtual function table. This is the default setting. show print object Show whether actual, or declared, object types are displayed. set print static-members set print static-members on Print static members when displaying a C++ object. The default is on. set print static-members off Do not print static members when displaying a C++ object. show print static-members Show whether C++ static members are printed or not. set print pascal_static-members set print pascal_static-members on Print static members when displaying a Pascal object. The default is on.

114

Debugging with gdb

set print pascal_static-members off Do not print static members when displaying a Pascal object. show print pascal_static-members Show whether Pascal static members are printed or not. set print vtbl set print vtbl on Pretty print C++ virtual function tables. The default is off. (The vtbl commands do not work on programs compiled with the HP ANSI C++ compiler (aCC).) set print vtbl off Do not pretty print C++ virtual function tables. show print vtbl Show whether C++ virtual function tables are pretty printed, or not.

10.9 Pretty Printing

gdb provides a mechanism to allow pretty-printing of values using Python code. It greatly simplifies the display of complex objects. This mechanism works for both MI and the CLI.

10.9.1 Pretty-Printer Introduction

When gdb prints a value, it first sees if there is a pretty-printer registered for the value. If there is then gdb invokes the pretty-printer to print the value. Otherwise the value is printed normally. Pretty-printers are normally named. This makes them easy to manage. The info pretty-printer command will list all the installed pretty-printers with their names. If a pretty-printer can handle multiple data types, then its subprinters are the printers for the individual data types. Each such subprinter has its own name. The format of the name is printer-name;subprinter-name. Pretty-printers are installed by registering them with gdb. Typically they are automatically loaded and registered when the corresponding debug information is loaded, thus making them available without having to do anything special. There are three places where a pretty-printer can be registered. Pretty-printers registered globally are available when debugging all inferiors. Pretty-printers registered with a program space are available only when debugging that program. See Section [Link] [Progspaces In Python], page 308, for more details on program spaces in Python. Pretty-printers registered with an objfile are loaded and unloaded with the corresponding objfile (e.g., shared library). See Section [Link] [Objfiles In Python], page 309, for more details on objfiles in Python. See Section [Link] [Selecting Pretty-Printers], page 295, for further information on how pretty-printers are selected, See Section [Link] [Writing a Pretty-Printer], page 296, for implementing pretty printers for new types.

Chapter 10: Examining Data

115

10.9.2 Pretty-Printer Example

Here is how a C++ std::string looks without a pretty-printer:
(gdb) print s $1 = { static npos = 4294967295, _M_dataplus = { <std::allocator<char>> = { <__gnu_cxx::new_allocator<char>> = { <No data fields>}, <No data fields> }, members of std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> >::_Alloc_hider: _M_p = 0x804a014 "abcd" } }

With a pretty-printer for std::string only the contents are printed:

(gdb) print s $2 = "abcd"

10.9.3 Pretty-Printer Commands

info pretty-printer [object-regexp [name-regexp]] Print the list of installed pretty-printers. This includes disabled pretty-printers, which are marked as such. object-regexp is a regular expression matching the objects whose pretty-printers to list. Objects can be global, the program spaces file (see Section [Link] [Progspaces In Python], page 308), and the object files within that program space (see Section [Link] [Objfiles In Python], page 309). See Section [Link] [Selecting Pretty-Printers], page 295, for details on how gdb looks up a printer from these three objects. name-regexp is a regular expression matching the name of the printers to list. disable pretty-printer [object-regexp [name-regexp]] Disable pretty-printers matching object-regexp and name-regexp. A disabled pretty-printer is not forgotten, it may be enabled again later. enable pretty-printer [object-regexp [name-regexp]] Enable pretty-printers matching object-regexp and name-regexp. Example: Suppose we have three pretty-printers installed: one from [Link] named foo that prints objects of type foo, and another from [Link] named bar that prints two types of objects, bar1 and bar2.
(gdb) info pretty-printer [Link]: foo [Link]: bar bar1 bar2 (gdb) info pretty-printer library2 [Link]:

116

Debugging with gdb

bar bar1 bar2 (gdb) disable pretty-printer library1 1 printer disabled 2 of 3 printers enabled (gdb) info pretty-printer [Link]: foo [disabled] [Link]: bar bar1 bar2 (gdb) disable pretty-printer library2 bar:bar1 1 printer disabled 1 of 3 printers enabled (gdb) info pretty-printer library2 [Link]: foo [disabled] [Link]: bar bar1 [disabled] bar2 (gdb) disable pretty-printer library2 bar 1 printer disabled 0 of 3 printers enabled (gdb) info pretty-printer library2 [Link]: foo [disabled] [Link]: bar [disabled] bar1 [disabled] bar2

Note that for bar the entire printer can be disabled, as can each individual subprinter.

10.10 Value History

Values printed by the print command are saved in the gdb value history. This allows you to refer to them in other expressions. Values are kept until the symbol table is re-read or discarded (for example with the file or symbol-file commands). When the symbol table changes, the value history is discarded, since the values may contain pointers back to the types defined in the symbol table. The values printed are given history numbers by which you can refer to them. These are successive integers starting with one. print shows you the history number assigned to a value by printing $num = before the value; here num is the history number. To refer to any previous value, use $ followed by the values history number. The way print labels its output is designed to remind you of this. Just $ refers to the most recent value in the history, and $$ refers to the value before that. $$n refers to the nth value from the end; $$2 is the value just prior to $$, $$1 is equivalent to $$, and $$0 is equivalent to $. For example, suppose you have just printed a pointer to a structure and want to see the contents of the structure. It suffices to type
p *$

Chapter 10: Examining Data

117

If you have a chain of structures where the component next points to the next one, you can print the contents of the next one with this:
p *$.next

You can print successive links in the chain by repeating this commandwhich you can do by just typing RET. Note that the history records values, not expressions. If the value of x is 4 and you type these commands:
print x set x=5

then the value recorded in the value history by the print command remains 4 even though the value of x has changed. show values Print the last ten values in the value history, with their item numbers. This is like p $$9 repeated ten times, except that show values does not change the history. show values n Print ten history values centered on history item number n. show values + Print ten history values just after the values last printed. If no more values are available, show values + produces no display. Pressing RET to repeat show values n has exactly the same effect as show values +.

10.11 Convenience Variables

gdb provides convenience variables that you can use within gdb to hold on to a value and refer to it later. These variables exist entirely within gdb; they are not part of your program, and setting a convenience variable has no direct effect on further execution of your program. That is why you can use them freely. Convenience variables are prefixed with $. Any name preceded by $ can be used for a convenience variable, unless it is one of the predefined machine-specific register names (see Section 10.12 [Registers], page 119). (Value history references, in contrast, are numbers preceded by $. See Section 10.10 [Value History], page 116.) You can save a value in a convenience variable with an assignment expression, just as you would set a variable in your program. For example:
set $foo = *object_ptr

would save in $foo the value contained in the object pointed to by object_ptr. Using a convenience variable for the first time creates it, but its value is void until you assign a new value. You can alter the value with another assignment at any time. Convenience variables have no fixed types. You can assign a convenience variable any type of value, including structures and arrays, even if that variable already has a value of a different type. The convenience variable, when used as an expression, has the type of its current value.

118

Debugging with gdb

show convenience Print a list of convenience variables used so far, and their values. Abbreviated show conv. init-if-undefined $variable = expression Set a convenience variable if it has not already been set. This is useful for user-defined commands that keep some state. It is similar, in concept, to using local static variables with initializers in C (except that convenience variables are global). It can also be used to allow users to override default values used in a command script. If the variable is already defined then the expression is not evaluated so any side-effects do not occur. One of the ways to use a convenience variable is as a counter to be incremented or a pointer to be advanced. For example, to print a field from successive elements of an array of structures:
set $i = 0 print bar[$i++]->contents

Repeat that command by typing RET. Some convenience variables are created automatically by gdb and given values likely to be useful. $_ The variable $_ is automatically set by the x command to the last address examined (see Section 10.6 [Examining Memory], page 103). Other commands which provide a default address for x to examine also set $_ to that address; these commands include info line and info breakpoint. The type of $_ is void * except when set by the x command, in which case it is a pointer to the type of $__. The variable $__ is automatically set by the x command to the value found in the last address examined. Its type is chosen to match the format in which the data was printed. The variable $_exitcode is automatically set to the exit code when the program being debugged terminates. $_sdata The variable $_sdata contains extra collected static tracepoint data. See Section 13.1.6 [Tracepoint Action Lists], page 144. Note that $_sdata could be empty, if not inspecting a trace buffer, or if extra static tracepoint data has not been collected. The variable $_siginfo contains extra signal information (see [extra signal information], page 67). Note that $_siginfo could be empty, if the application has not yet received any signals. For example, it will be empty before you execute the run command. $_tlb The variable $_tlb is automatically set when debugging applications running on MS-Windows in native mode or connected to gdbserver that supports the qGetTIBAddr request. See Section E.4 [General Query Packets], page 477. This variable contains the address of the thread information block.

$__

$_exitcode

$_siginfo

Chapter 10: Examining Data

119

On HP-UX systems, if you refer to a function or variable name that begins with a dollar sign, gdb searches for a user or system name first, before it searches for a convenience variable. gdb also supplies some convenience functions. These have a syntax similar to convenience variables. A convenience function can be used in an expression just like an ordinary function; however, a convenience function is implemented internally to gdb. help function Print a list of all convenience functions.

10.12 Registers
You can refer to machine register contents, in expressions, as variables with names starting with $. The names of registers are different for each machine; use info registers to see the names used on your machine. info registers Print the names and values of all registers except floating-point and vector registers (in the selected stack frame). info all-registers Print the names and values of all registers, including floating-point and vector registers (in the selected stack frame). info registers regname ... Print the relativized value of each specified register regname. As discussed in detail below, register values are normally relative to the selected stack frame. regname may be any register name valid on the machine you are using, with or without the initial $. gdb has four standard register names that are available (in expressions) on most machineswhenever they do not conflict with an architectures canonical mnemonics for registers. The register names $pc and $sp are used for the program counter register and the stack pointer. $fp is used for a register that contains a pointer to the current stack frame, and $ps is used for a register that contains the processor status. For example, you could print the program counter in hex with
p/x $pc

or print the instruction to be executed next with

x/i $pc

or add four to the stack pointer2 with

set $sp += 4

Whenever possible, these four standard register names are available on your machine even though the machine has different canonical mnemonics, so long as there is no conflict. The info registers command shows the canonical names. For example, on the SPARC,
2

This is a way of removing one word from the stack, on machines where stacks grow downward in memory (most machines, nowadays). This assumes that the innermost stack frame is selected; setting $sp is not allowed when other stack frames are selected. To pop entire frames off the stack, regardless of machine architecture, use return; see Section 17.4 [Returning from a Function], page 197.

120

Debugging with gdb

info registers displays the processor status register as $psr but you can also refer to it as $ps; and on x86-based machines $ps is an alias for the eflags register. gdb always considers the contents of an ordinary register as an integer when the register is examined in this way. Some machines have special registers which can hold nothing but floating point; these registers are considered to have floating point values. There is no way to refer to the contents of an ordinary register as floating point value (although you can print it as a floating point value with print/f $regname). Some registers have distinct raw and virtual data formats. This means that the data format in which the register contents are saved by the operating system is not the same one that your program normally sees. For example, the registers of the 68881 floating point coprocessor are always saved in extended (raw) format, but all C programs expect to work with double (virtual) format. In such cases, gdb normally works with the virtual format only (the format that makes sense for your program), but the info registers command prints the data in both formats. Some machines have special registers whose contents can be interpreted in several different ways. For example, modern x86-based machines have SSE and MMX registers that can hold several values packed together in several different formats. gdb refers to such registers in struct notation:
(gdb) print $xmm1 $1 = { v4_float = {0, 3.43859137e-038, 1.54142831e-044, 1.821688e-044}, v2_double = {9.92129282474342e-303, 2.7585945287983262e-313}, v16_int8 = "\000\000\000\000\3706;\001\v\000\000\000\r\000\000", v8_int16 = {0, 0, 14072, 315, 11, 0, 13, 0}, v4_int32 = {0, 20657912, 11, 13}, v2_int64 = {88725056443645952, 55834574859}, uint128 = 0x0000000d0000000b013b36f800000000 }

To set values of such registers, you need to tell gdb which view of the register you wish to change, as if you were assigning value to a struct member:
(gdb) set $xmm1.uint128 = 0x000000000000000000000000FFFFFFFF

Normally, register values are relative to the selected stack frame (see Section 8.3 [Selecting a Frame], page 84). This means that you get the value that the register would contain if all stack frames farther in were exited and their saved registers restored. In order to see the true contents of hardware registers, you must select the innermost frame (with frame 0). However, gdb must deduce where registers are saved, from the machine code generated by your compiler. If some registers are not saved, or if gdb is unable to locate the saved registers, the selected stack frame makes no difference.

10.13 Floating Point Hardware

Depending on the configuration, gdb may be able to give you more information about the status of the floating point hardware. info float Display hardware-dependent information about the floating point unit. The exact contents and layout vary depending on the floating point chip. Currently, info float is supported on the ARM and x86 machines.

Chapter 10: Examining Data

121

10.14 Vector Unit

Depending on the configuration, gdb may be able to give you more information about the status of the vector unit. info vector Display information about the vector unit. The exact contents and layout vary depending on the hardware.

10.15 Operating System Auxiliary Information

gdb provides interfaces to useful OS facilities that can help you debug your program. When gdb runs on a Posix system (such as GNU or Unix machines), it interfaces with the inferior via the ptrace system call. The operating system creates a special sata structure, called struct user, for this interface. You can use the command info udot to display the contents of this data structure. info udot Display the contents of the struct user maintained by the OS kernel for the program being debugged. gdb displays the contents of struct user as a list of hex numbers, similar to the examine command. Some operating systems supply an auxiliary vector to programs at startup. This is akin to the arguments and environment that you specify for a program, but contains a systemdependent variety of binary values that tell system libraries important details about the hardware, operating system, and process. Each values purpose is identified by an integer tag; the meanings are well-known but system-specific. Depending on the configuration and operating system facilities, gdb may be able to show you this information. For remote targets, this functionality may further depend on the remote stubs support of the qXfer:auxv:read packet, see [qXfer auxiliary vector read], page 490. info auxv Display the auxiliary vector of the inferior, which can be either a live process or a core dump file. gdb prints each tag value numerically, and also shows names and text descriptions for recognized tags. Some values in the vector are numbers, some bit masks, and some pointers to strings or other data. gdb displays each value in the most appropriate form for a recognized tag, and in hexadecimal for an unrecognized tag. On some targets, gdb can access operating-system-specific information and display it to user, without interpretation. For remote targets, this functionality depends on the remote stubs support of the qXfer:osdata:read packet, see [qXfer osdata read], page 491. info os List the types of OS information available for the target. If the target does not return a list of possible types, this command will report an error.

info os processes Display the list of processes on the target. For each process, gdb prints the process identifier, the name of the user, and the command corresponding to the process.

122

Debugging with gdb

10.16 Memory Region Attributes

Memory region attributes allow you to describe special handling required by regions of your targets memory. gdb uses attributes to determine whether to allow certain types of memory accesses; whether to use specific width accesses; and whether to cache target memory. By default the description of memory regions is fetched from the target (if the current target supports this), but the user can override the fetched regions. Defined memory regions can be individually enabled and disabled. When a memory region is disabled, gdb uses the default attributes when accessing memory in that region. Similarly, if no memory regions have been defined, gdb uses the default attributes when accessing all memory. When a memory region is defined, it is given a number to identify it; to enable, disable, or remove a memory region, you specify that number. mem lower upper attributes... Define a memory region bounded by lower and upper with attributes attributes . . . , and add it to the list of regions monitored by gdb. Note that upper == 0 is a special case: it is treated as the targets maximum memory address. (0xffff on 16 bit targets, 0xffffffff on 32 bit targets, etc.) mem auto Discard any user changes to the memory regions and use target-supplied regions, if available, or no regions if the target does not support.

delete mem nums... Remove memory regions nums . . . from the list of regions monitored by gdb. disable mem nums... Disable monitoring of memory regions nums . . . . A disabled memory region is not forgotten. It may be enabled again later. enable mem nums... Enable monitoring of memory regions nums . . . . info mem Print a table of all defined memory regions, with the following columns for each region: Memory Region Number Enabled or Disabled. Enabled memory regions are marked with y. Disabled memory regions are marked with n. Lo Address The address defining the inclusive lower bound of the memory region. Hi Address The address defining the exclusive upper bound of the memory region. Attributes The list of attributes set for this memory region.

10.16.1 Attributes

Chapter 10: Examining Data

123

[Link] Memory Access Mode

The access mode attributes set whether gdb may make read or write accesses to a memory region. While these attributes prevent gdb from performing invalid memory accesses, they do nothing to prevent the target system, I/O DMA, etc. from accessing memory. ro wo rw Memory is read only. Memory is write only. Memory is read/write. This is the default.

[Link] Memory Access Size

The access size attribute tells gdb to use specific sized accesses in the memory region. Often memory mapped device registers require specific sized accesses. If no access size attribute is specified, gdb may use accesses of any size. 8 16 32 64 Use 8 bit memory accesses. Use 16 bit memory accesses. Use 32 bit memory accesses. Use 64 bit memory accesses.

[Link] Data Cache

The data cache attributes set whether gdb will cache target memory. While this generally improves performance by reducing debug protocol overhead, it can lead to incorrect results because gdb does not know about volatile variables or memory mapped device registers. cache nocache Enable gdb to cache target memory. Disable gdb from caching target memory. This is the default.

10.16.2 Memory Access Checking

gdb can be instructed to refuse accesses to memory that is not explicitly described. This can be useful if accessing such regions has undesired effects for a specific target, or to provide better error checking. The following commands control this behaviour. set mem inaccessible-by-default [on|off] If on is specified, make gdb treat memory not explicitly described by the memory ranges as non-existent and refuse accesses to such memory. The checks are only performed if theres at least one memory range defined. If off is specified, make gdb treat the memory not explicitly described by the memory ranges as RAM. The default value is on. show mem inaccessible-by-default Show the current handling of accesses to unknown memory.

124

Debugging with gdb

10.17 Copy Between Memory and a File

You can use the commands dump, append, and restore to copy data between target memory and a file. The dump and append commands write data to a file, and the restore command reads data from a file back into the inferiors memory. Files may be in binary, Motorola S-record, Intel hex, or Tektronix Hex format; however, gdb can only append to binary files. dump [format] memory filename start_addr end_addr dump [format] value filename expr Dump the contents of memory from start addr to end addr, or the value of expr, to filename in the given format. The format parameter may be any one of: binary ihex srec tekhex Raw binary form. Intel hex format. Motorola S-record format. Tektronix Hex format.

gdb uses the same definitions of these formats as the gnu binary utilities, like objdump and objcopy. If format is omitted, gdb dumps the data in raw binary form. append [binary] memory filename start_addr end_addr append [binary] value filename expr Append the contents of memory from start addr to end addr, or the value of expr, to the file filename, in raw binary form. (gdb can only append data to files in raw binary form.) restore filename [binary] bias start end Restore the contents of file filename into memory. The restore command can automatically recognize any known bfd file format, except for raw binary. To restore a raw binary file you must specify the optional keyword binary after the filename. If bias is non-zero, its value will be added to the addresses contained in the file. Binary files always start at address zero, so they will be restored at address bias. Other bfd files have a built-in location; they will be restored at offset bias from that location. If start and/or end are non-zero, then only data between file offset start and file offset end will be restored. These offsets are relative to the addresses in the file, before the bias argument is applied.

10.18 How to Produce a Core File from Your Program

A core file or core dump is a file that records the memory image of a running process and its process status (register values etc.). Its primary use is post-mortem debugging of a program that crashed while it ran outside a debugger. A program that crashes automatically produces a core file, unless this feature is disabled by the user. See Section 18.1 [Files], page 201, for information on invoking gdb in the post-mortem debugging mode.

Chapter 10: Examining Data

125

Occasionally, you may wish to produce a core file of the program you are debugging in order to preserve a snapshot of its state. gdb has a special command for that. generate-core-file [file] gcore [file] Produce a core dump of the inferior process. The optional argument file specifies the file name where to put the core dump. If not specified, the file name defaults to [Link], where pid is the inferior process ID. Note that this command is implemented only for some systems (as of this writing, gnu/Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Unixware, and S390).

10.19 Character Sets

If the program you are debugging uses a different character set to represent characters and strings than the one gdb uses itself, gdb can automatically translate between the character sets for you. The character set gdb uses we call the host character set; the one the inferior program uses we call the target character set. For example, if you are running gdb on a gnu/Linux system, which uses the ISO Latin 1 character set, but you are using gdbs remote protocol (see Chapter 20 [Remote Debugging], page 219) to debug a program running on an IBM mainframe, which uses the ebcdic character set, then the host character set is Latin-1, and the target character set is ebcdic. If you give gdb the command set target-charset EBCDIC-US, then gdb translates between ebcdic and Latin 1 as you print character or string values, or use character and string literals in expressions. gdb has no way to automatically recognize which character set the inferior program uses; you must tell it, using the set target-charset command, described below. Here are the commands for controlling gdbs character set support: set target-charset charset Set the current target character set to charset. To display the list of supported target character sets, type set target-charset TABTAB. set host-charset charset Set the current host character set to charset. By default, gdb uses a host character set appropriate to the system it is running on; you can override that default using the set host-charset command. On some systems, gdb cannot automatically determine the appropriate host character set. In this case, gdb uses UTF-8. gdb can only use certain character sets as its host character set. If you type set host-charset TABTAB, gdb will list the host character sets it supports. set charset charset Set the current host and target character sets to charset. As above, if you type set charset TABTAB, gdb will list the names of the character sets that can be used for both host and target. show charset Show the names of the current host and target character sets.

126

Debugging with gdb

show host-charset Show the name of the current host character set. show target-charset Show the name of the current target character set. set target-wide-charset charset Set the current targets wide character set to charset. This is the character set used by the targets wchar_t type. To display the list of supported wide character sets, type set target-wide-charset TABTAB. show target-wide-charset Show the name of the current targets wide character set. Here is an example of gdbs character set support in action. Assume that the following source code has been placed in the file charset-test.c:
#include <stdio.h> char ascii_hello[] = {72, 101, 108, 108, 111, 44, 32, 119, 111, 114, 108, 100, 33, 10, 0}; char ibm1047_hello[] = {200, 133, 147, 147, 150, 107, 64, 166, 150, 153, 147, 132, 90, 37, 0}; main () { printf ("Hello, world!\n"); }

In this program, ascii_hello and ibm1047_hello are arrays containing the string Hello, world! followed by a newline, encoded in the ascii and ibm1047 character sets. We compile the program, and invoke the debugger on it:
$ gcc -g charset-test.c -o charset-test $ gdb -nw charset-test GNU gdb 2001-12-19-cvs Copyright 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc. ... (gdb)

We can use the show charset command to see what character sets gdb is currently using to interpret and display characters and strings:
(gdb) show charset The current host and target character set is ISO-8859-1. (gdb)

For the sake of printing this manual, lets use ascii as our initial character set:
(gdb) set charset ASCII (gdb) show charset The current host and target character set is ASCII. (gdb)

Lets assume that ascii is indeed the correct character set for our host system in other words, lets assume that if gdb prints characters using the ascii character set, our terminal will display them properly. Since our current target character set is also ascii, the contents of ascii_hello print legibly:

Chapter 10: Examining Data

127

(gdb) print ascii_hello $1 = 0x401698 "Hello, world!\n" (gdb) print ascii_hello[0] $2 = 72 H (gdb)

gdb uses the target character set for character and string literals you use in expressions:
(gdb) print + $3 = 43 + (gdb)

The ascii character set uses the number 43 to encode the + character. gdb relies on the user to tell it which character set the target program uses. If we print ibm1047_hello while our target character set is still ascii, we get jibberish:
(gdb) print ibm1047_hello $4 = 0x4016a8 "\310\205\223\223\226k@\246\226\231\223\204Z%" (gdb) print ibm1047_hello[0] $5 = 200 \310 (gdb)

If we invoke the set target-charset followed by TABTAB, gdb tells us the character sets it supports:
(gdb) set target-charset ASCII EBCDIC-US IBM1047 (gdb) set target-charset ISO-8859-1

We can select ibm1047 as our target character set, and examine the programs strings again. Now the ascii string is wrong, but gdb translates the contents of ibm1047_hello from the target character set, ibm1047, to the host character set, ascii, and they display correctly:
(gdb) set target-charset IBM1047 (gdb) show charset The current host character set is ASCII. The current target character set is IBM1047. (gdb) print ascii_hello $6 = 0x401698 "\110\145%%?\054\040\167?\162%\144\041\012" (gdb) print ascii_hello[0] $7 = 72 \110 (gdb) print ibm1047_hello $8 = 0x4016a8 "Hello, world!\n" (gdb) print ibm1047_hello[0] $9 = 200 H (gdb)

As above, gdb uses the target character set for character and string literals you use in expressions:
(gdb) print + $10 = 78 + (gdb)

The ibm1047 character set uses the number 78 to encode the + character.

10.20 Caching Data of Remote Targets

gdb caches data exchanged between the debugger and a remote target (see Chapter 20 [Remote Debugging], page 219). Such caching generally improves performance, because it reduces the overhead of the remote protocol by bundling memory reads and writes into large

128

Debugging with gdb

chunks. Unfortunately, simply caching everything would lead to incorrect results, since gdb does not necessarily know anything about volatile values, memory-mapped I/O addresses, etc. Furthermore, in non-stop mode (see Section 5.5.2 [Non-Stop Mode], page 69) memory can be changed while a gdb command is executing. Therefore, by default, gdb only caches data known to be on the stack3 . Other regions of memory can be explicitly marked as cacheable; see see Section 10.16 [Memory Region Attributes], page 122. set remotecache on set remotecache off This option no longer does anything; it exists for compatibility with old scripts. show remotecache Show the current state of the obsolete remotecache flag. set stack-cache on set stack-cache off Enable or disable caching of stack accesses. When ON, use caching. By default, this option is ON. show stack-cache Show the current state of data caching for memory accesses. info dcache [line] Print the information about the data cache performance. The information displayed includes the dcache width and depth, and for each cache line, its number, address, and how many times it was referenced. This command is useful for debugging the data cache operation. If a line number is specified, the contents of that line will be printed in hex. set dcache size size Set maximum number of entries in dcache (dcache depth above). set dcache line-size line-size Set number of bytes each dcache entry caches (dcache width above). Must be a power of 2. show dcache size Show maximum number of dcache entries. See also Section 10.20 [Caching Remote Data], page 127. show dcache line-size Show default size of dcache lines. See also Section 10.20 [Caching Remote Data], page 127.

10.21 Search Memory

Memory can be searched for a particular sequence of bytes with the find command.
3

In non-stop mode, it is moderately rare for a running thread to modify the stack of a stopped thread in a way that would interfere with a backtrace, and caching of stack reads provides a significant speed up of remote backtraces.

Chapter 10: Examining Data

129

find [/sn] start_addr, +len, val1 [, val2, ...] find [/sn] start_addr, end_addr, val1 [, val2, ...] Search memory for the sequence of bytes specified by val1, val2, etc. The search begins at address start addr and continues for either len bytes or through to end addr inclusive. s and n are optional parameters. They may be specified in either order, apart or together. s, search query size The size of each search query value. b h w g bytes halfwords (two bytes) words (four bytes) giant words (eight bytes)

All values are interpreted in the current language. This means, for example, that if the current source language is C/C++ then searching for the string hello includes the trailing \0. If the value size is not specified, it is taken from the values type in the current language. This is useful when one wants to specify the search pattern as a mixture of types. Note that this means, for example, that in the case of C-like languages a search for an untyped 0x42 will search for (int) 0x42 which is typically four bytes. n, maximum number of finds The maximum number of matches to print. The default is to print all finds. You can use strings as search values. Quote them with double-quotes ("). The string value is copied into the search pattern byte by byte, regardless of the endianness of the target and the size specification. The address of each match found is printed as well as a count of the number of matches found. The address of the last value found is stored in convenience variable $_. A count of the number of matches is stored in $numfound. For example, if stopped at the printf in this function:
void hello () { static char hello[] = "hello-hello"; static struct { char c; short s; int i; } __attribute__ ((packed)) mixed = { c, 0x1234, 0x87654321 }; printf ("%s\n", hello); }

you get during debugging:

(gdb) find &hello[0], +sizeof(hello), "hello" 0x804956d <hello.1620+6> 1 pattern found (gdb) find &hello[0], +sizeof(hello), h, e, l, l, o

130

Debugging with gdb

0x8049567 <hello.1620> 0x804956d <hello.1620+6> 2 patterns found (gdb) find /b1 &hello[0], +sizeof(hello), h, 0x65, l 0x8049567 <hello.1620> 1 pattern found (gdb) find &mixed, +sizeof(mixed), (char) c, (short) 0x1234, (int) 0x87654321 0x8049560 <mixed.1625> 1 pattern found (gdb) print $numfound $1 = 1 (gdb) print $_ $2 = (void *) 0x8049560

Chapter 11: Debugging Optimized Code

131

11 Debugging Optimized Code

Almost all compilers support optimization. With optimization disabled, the compiler generates assembly code that corresponds directly to your source code, in a simplistic way. As the compiler applies more powerful optimizations, the generated assembly code diverges from your original source code. With help from debugging information generated by the compiler, gdb can map from the running program back to constructs from your original source. gdb is more accurate with optimization disabled. If you can recompile without optimization, it is easier to follow the progress of your program during debugging. But, there are many cases where you may need to debug an optimized version. When you debug a program compiled with -g -O, remember that the optimizer has rearranged your code; the debugger shows you what is really there. Do not be too surprised when the execution path does not exactly match your source file! An extreme example: if you define a variable, but never use it, gdb never sees that variablebecause the compiler optimizes it out of existence. Some things do not work as well with -g -O as with just -g, particularly on machines with instruction scheduling. If in doubt, recompile with -g alone, and if this fixes the problem, please report it to us as a bug (including a test case!). See Section 10.3 [Variables], page 99, for more information about debugging optimized code.

11.1 Inline Functions

Inlining is an optimization that inserts a copy of the function body directly at each call site, instead of jumping to a shared routine. gdb displays inlined functions just like non-inlined functions. They appear in backtraces. You can view their arguments and local variables, step into them with step, skip them with next, and escape from them with finish. You can check whether a function was inlined by using the info frame command. For gdb to support inlined functions, the compiler must record information about inlining in the debug information gcc using the dwarf 2 format does this, and several other compilers do also. gdb only supports inlined functions when using dwarf 2. Versions of gcc before 4.1 do not emit two required attributes (DW_AT_call_file and DW_AT_call_line); gdb does not display inlined function calls with earlier versions of gcc. It instead displays the arguments and local variables of inlined functions as local variables in the caller. The body of an inlined function is directly included at its call site; unlike a non-inlined function, there are no instructions devoted to the call. gdb still pretends that the call site and the start of the inlined function are different instructions. Stepping to the call site shows the call site, and then stepping again shows the first line of the inlined function, even though no additional instructions are executed. This makes source-level debugging much clearer; you can see both the context of the call and then the effect of the call. Only stepping by a single instruction using stepi or nexti does not do this; single instruction steps always show the inlined body. There are some ways that gdb does not pretend that inlined function calls are the same as normal calls:

132

Debugging with gdb

You cannot set breakpoints on inlined functions. gdb either reports that there is no symbol with that name, or else sets the breakpoint only on non-inlined copies of the function. This limitation will be removed in a future version of gdb; until then, set a breakpoint by line number on the first line of the inlined function instead. Setting breakpoints at the call site of an inlined function may not work, because the call site does not contain any code. gdb may incorrectly move the breakpoint to the next line of the enclosing function, after the call. This limitation will be removed in a future version of gdb; until then, set a breakpoint on an earlier line or inside the inlined function instead. gdb cannot locate the return value of inlined calls after using the finish command. This is a limitation of compiler-generated debugging information; after finish, you can step to the next line and print a variable where your program stored the return value.

11.2 Tail Call Frames

Function B can call function C in its very last statement. In unoptimized compilation the call of C is immediately followed by return instruction at the end of B code. Optimizing compiler may replace the call and return in function B into one jump to function C instead. Such use of a jump instruction is called tail call. During execution of function C, there will be no indication in the function call stack frames that it was tail-called from B. If function A regularly calls function B which tail-calls function C, then gdb will see A as the caller of C. However, in some cases gdb can determine that C was tail-called from B, and it will then create fictitious call frame for that, with the return address set up as if B called C normally. This functionality is currently supported only by DWARF 2 debugging format and the compiler has to produce DW_TAG_GNU_call_site tags. With gcc, you need to specify -O -g during compilation, to get this information. info frame command (see Section 8.4 [Frame Info], page 85) will indicate the tail call frame kind by text tail call frame such as in this sample gdb output:
(gdb) x/i $pc - 2 0x40066b <b(int, double)+11>: jmp 0x400640 <c(int, double)> (gdb) info frame Stack level 1, frame at 0x7fffffffda30: rip = 0x40066d in b ([Link]); saved rip 0x4004c5 tail call frame, caller of frame at 0x7fffffffda30 source language c++. Arglist at unknown address. Locals at unknown address, Previous frames sp is 0x7fffffffda30

The detection of all the possible code path executions can find them ambiguous. There is no execution history stored (possible Chapter 6 [Reverse Execution], page 75 is never used for this purpose) and the last known caller could have reached the known callee by multiple different jump sequences. In such case gdb still tries to show at least all the unambiguous top tail callers and all the unambiguous bottom tail calees, if any. set debug entry-values When set to on, enables printing of analysis messages for both frame argument values at function entry and tail calls. It will show all the possible valid tail

Chapter 11: Debugging Optimized Code

133

calls code paths it has considered. It will also print the intersection of them with the final unambiguous (possibly partial or even empty) code path result. show debug entry-values Show the current state of analysis messages printing for both frame argument values at function entry and tail calls. The analysis messages for tail calls can for example show why the virtual tail call frame for function c has not been recognized (due to the indirect reference by variable x):
static void __attribute__((noinline, noclone)) c (void); void (*x) (void) = c; static void __attribute__((noinline, noclone)) a (void) { x++; } static void __attribute__((noinline, noclone)) c (void) { a (); } int main (void) { x (); return 0; } Breakpoint 1, DW_OP_GNU_entry_value resolving cannot find DW_TAG_GNU_call_site 0x40039a in main a () at t.c:3 3 static void __attribute__((noinline, noclone)) a (void) { x++; } (gdb) bt #0 a () at t.c:3 #1 0x000000000040039a in main () at t.c:5

Another possibility is an ambiguous virtual tail call frames resolution:

int i; static void __attribute__((noinline, static void __attribute__((noinline, static void __attribute__((noinline, static void __attribute__((noinline, static void __attribute__((noinline, { if (i) c (); else e (); } static void __attribute__((noinline, int main (void) { a (); return 0; } tailcall: initial: 0x4004d2(a) tailcall: compare: 0x4004d2(a) tailcall: reduced: 0x4004d2(a) (gdb) bt #0 f () at t.c:2 #1 0x00000000004004d2 in a () #2 0x0000000000400395 in main noclone)) noclone)) noclone)) noclone)) noclone)) f e d c b (void) (void) (void) (void) (void) { { { { i++; } f (); } f (); } d (); }

noclone)) a (void) { b (); }

0x4004ce(b) 0x4004b2(c) 0x4004a2(d) 0x4004cc(b) 0x400492(e) |

at t.c:8 () at t.c:9

Frames #0 and #2 are real, #1 is a virtual tail call frame. The code can have possible execution paths main->a->b->c->d->f or main->a->b->e->f, gdb cannot find which one from the inferior state. initial: state shows some random possible calling sequence gdb has found. It then finds another possible calling sequcen - that one is prefixed by compare:. The nonambiguous intersection of these two is printed as the reduced: calling sequence. That one could have many futher compare: and reduced: statements as long as there remain any non-ambiguous sequence entries. For the frame of function b in both cases there are different possible $pc values (0x4004cc or 0x4004ce), therefore this frame is also ambigous. The only non-ambiguous frame is the one for function a, therefore this one is displayed to the user while the ambiguous frames are omitted.

134

Debugging with gdb

There can be also reasons why printing of frame argument values at function entry may fail:
int v; static void __attribute__((noinline, static void __attribute__((noinline, static void __attribute__((noinline, static void __attribute__((noinline, { if (i) b (i - 1); else c (0); } int main (void) { a (5); return 0; } noclone)) noclone)) noclone)) noclone)) c a b a (int (int (int (int i) { v++; } i); i) { a (i); } i)

(gdb) bt #0 c (i=i@entry=0) at t.c:2 #1 0x0000000000400428 in a (DW_OP_GNU_entry_value resolving has found function "a" at 0x400420 can call itself via tail calls i=<optimized out>) at t.c:6 #2 0x000000000040036e in main () at t.c:7

gdb cannot find out from the inferior state if and how many times did function a call itself (via function b) as these calls would be tail calls. Such tail calls would modify thue i variable, therefore gdb cannot be sure the value it knows would be right - gdb prints <optimized out> instead.

Chapter 12: C Preprocessor Macros

135

12 C Preprocessor Macros
Some languages, such as C and C++, provide a way to define and invoke preprocessor macros which expand into strings of tokens. gdb can evaluate expressions containing macro invocations, show the result of macro expansion, and show a macros definition, including where it was defined. You may need to compile your program specially to provide gdb with information about preprocessor macros. Most compilers do not include macros in their debugging information, even when you compile with the -g flag. See Section 4.1 [Compilation], page 25. A program may define a macro at one point, remove that definition later, and then provide a different definition after that. Thus, at different points in the program, a macro may have different definitions, or have no definition at all. If there is a current stack frame, gdb uses the macros in scope at that frames source code line. Otherwise, gdb uses the macros in scope at the current listing location; see Section 9.1 [List], page 87. Whenever gdb evaluates an expression, it always expands any macro invocations present in the expression. gdb also provides the following commands for working with macros explicitly. macro expand expression macro exp expression Show the results of expanding all preprocessor macro invocations in expression. Since gdb simply expands macros, but does not parse the result, expression need not be a valid expression; it can be any string of tokens. macro expand-once expression macro exp1 expression (This command is not yet implemented.) Show the results of expanding those preprocessor macro invocations that appear explicitly in expression. Macro invocations appearing in that expansion are left unchanged. This command allows you to see the effect of a particular macro more clearly, without being confused by further expansions. Since gdb simply expands macros, but does not parse the result, expression need not be a valid expression; it can be any string of tokens. info macro [-a|-all] [--] macro Show the current definition or all definitions of the named macro, and describe the source location or compiler command-line where that definition was established. The optional double dash is to signify the end of argument processing and the beginning of macro for non C-like macros where the macro may begin with a hyphen. info macros linespec Show all macro definitions that are in effect at the location specified by linespec, and describe the source location or compiler command-line where those definitions were established. macro define macro replacement-list macro define macro(arglist) replacement-list Introduce a definition for a preprocessor macro named macro, invocations of which are replaced by the tokens given in replacement-list. The first form of

136

Debugging with gdb

this command defines an object-like macro, which takes no arguments; the second form defines a function-like macro, which takes the arguments given in arglist. A definition introduced by this command is in scope in every expression evaluated in gdb, until it is removed with the macro undef command, described below. The definition overrides all definitions for macro present in the program being debugged, as well as any previous user-supplied definition. macro undef macro Remove any user-supplied definition for the macro named macro. This command only affects definitions provided with the macro define command, described above; it cannot remove definitions present in the program being debugged. macro list List all the macros defined using the macro define command. Here is a transcript showing the above commands in action. First, we show our source files:
$ cat sample.c #include <stdio.h> #include "sample.h" #define M 42 #define ADD(x) (M + x) main () { #define N 28 printf ("Hello, world!\n"); #undef N printf ("Were so creative.\n"); #define N 1729 printf ("Goodbye, world!\n"); } $ cat sample.h #define Q < $

Now, we compile the program using the gnu C compiler, gcc. We pass the -gdwarf-21 and -g3 flags to ensure the compiler includes information about preprocessor macros in the debugging information.
$ gcc -gdwarf-2 -g3 sample.c -o sample $

Now, we start gdb on our sample program:

$ gdb -nw sample GNU gdb 2002-05-06-cvs Copyright 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc. GDB is free software, ... (gdb)
1

This is the minimum. Recent versions of gcc support -gdwarf-3 and -gdwarf-4; we recommend always choosing the most recent version of DWARF.

Chapter 12: C Preprocessor Macros

137

We can expand macros and examine their definitions, even when the program is not running. gdb uses the current listing position to decide which macro definitions are in scope:
(gdb) list main 3 4 #define M 42 5 #define ADD(x) (M + x) 6 7 main () 8 { 9 #define N 28 10 printf ("Hello, world!\n"); 11 #undef N 12 printf ("Were so creative.\n"); (gdb) info macro ADD Defined at /home/jimb/gdb/macros/play/sample.c:5 #define ADD(x) (M + x) (gdb) info macro Q Defined at /home/jimb/gdb/macros/play/sample.h:1 included at /home/jimb/gdb/macros/play/sample.c:2 #define Q < (gdb) macro expand ADD(1) expands to: (42 + 1) (gdb) macro expand-once ADD(1) expands to: once (M + 1) (gdb)

In the example above, note that macro expand-once expands only the macro invocation explicit in the original text the invocation of ADD but does not expand the invocation of the macro M, which was introduced by ADD. Once the program is running, gdb uses the macro definitions in force at the source line of the current stack frame:
(gdb) break main Breakpoint 1 at 0x8048370: file sample.c, line 10. (gdb) run Starting program: /home/jimb/gdb/macros/play/sample Breakpoint 1, main () at sample.c:10 10 printf ("Hello, world!\n"); (gdb)

At line 10, the definition of the macro N at line 9 is in force:

(gdb) info macro N Defined at /home/jimb/gdb/macros/play/sample.c:9 #define N 28 (gdb) macro expand N Q M expands to: 28 < 42 (gdb) print N Q M $1 = 1 (gdb)

As we step over directives that remove Ns definition, and then give it a new definition, gdb finds the definition (or lack thereof) in force at each point:
(gdb) next Hello, world! 12 printf ("Were so creative.\n"); (gdb) info macro N

138

Debugging with gdb

The symbol N has no definition as a C/C++ preprocessor macro at /home/jimb/gdb/macros/play/sample.c:12 (gdb) next Were so creative. 14 printf ("Goodbye, world!\n"); (gdb) info macro N Defined at /home/jimb/gdb/macros/play/sample.c:13 #define N 1729 (gdb) macro expand N Q M expands to: 1729 < 42 (gdb) print N Q M $2 = 0 (gdb)

In addition to source files, macros can be defined on the compilation command line using the -Dname=value syntax. For macros defined in such a way, gdb displays the location of their definition as line zero of the source file submitted to the compiler.
(gdb) info macro __STDC__ Defined at /home/jimb/gdb/macros/play/sample.c:0 -D__STDC__=1 (gdb)

Chapter 13: Tracepoints

139

13 Tracepoints
In some applications, it is not feasible for the debugger to interrupt the programs execution long enough for the developer to learn anything helpful about its behavior. If the programs correctness depends on its real-time behavior, delays introduced by a debugger might cause the program to change its behavior drastically, or perhaps fail, even when the code itself is correct. It is useful to be able to observe the programs behavior without interrupting it. Using gdbs trace and collect commands, you can specify locations in the program, called tracepoints, and arbitrary expressions to evaluate when those tracepoints are reached. Later, using the tfind command, you can examine the values those expressions had when the program hit the tracepoints. The expressions may also denote objects in memory structures or arrays, for examplewhose values gdb should record; while visiting a particular tracepoint, you may inspect those objects as if they were in memory at that moment. However, because gdb records these values without interacting with you, it can do so quickly and unobtrusively, hopefully not disturbing the programs behavior. The tracepoint facility is currently available only for remote targets. See Chapter 19 [Targets], page 215. In addition, your remote target must know how to collect trace data. This functionality is implemented in the remote stub; however, none of the stubs distributed with gdb support tracepoints as of this writing. The format of the remote packets used to implement tracepoints are described in Section E.6 [Tracepoint Packets], page 494. It is also possible to get trace data from a file, in a manner reminiscent of corefiles; you specify the filename, and use tfind to search through the file. See Section 13.4 [Trace Files], page 154, for more details. This chapter describes the tracepoint commands and features.

13.1 Commands to Set Tracepoints

Before running such a trace experiment, an arbitrary number of tracepoints can be set. A tracepoint is actually a special type of breakpoint (see Section 5.1.1 [Set Breaks], page 44), so you can manipulate it using standard breakpoint commands. For instance, as with breakpoints, tracepoint numbers are successive integers starting from one, and many of the commands associated with tracepoints take the tracepoint number as their argument, to identify which tracepoint to work on. For each tracepoint, you can specify, in advance, some arbitrary set of data that you want the target to collect in the trace buffer when it hits that tracepoint. The collected data can include registers, local variables, or global data. Later, you can use gdb commands to examine the values these data had at the time the tracepoint was hit. Tracepoints do not support every breakpoint feature. Ignore counts on tracepoints have no effect, and tracepoints cannot run gdb commands when they are hit. Tracepoints may not be thread-specific either. Some targets may support fast tracepoints, which are inserted in a different way (such as with a jump instead of a trap), that is faster but possibly restricted in where they may be installed. Regular and fast tracepoints are dynamic tracing facilities, meaning that they can be used to insert tracepoints at (almost) any location in the target. Some targets may also support controlling static tracepoints from gdb. With static tracing, a set of instrumentation

140

Debugging with gdb

points, also known as markers, are embedded in the target program, and can be activated or deactivated by name or address. These are usually placed at locations which facilitate investigating what the target is actually doing. gdbs support for static tracing includes being able to list instrumentation points, and attach them with gdb defined high level tracepoints that expose the whole range of convenience of gdbs tracepoints support. Namely, support for collecting registers values and values of global or local (to the instrumentation point) variables; tracepoint conditions and trace state variables. The act of installing a gdb static tracepoint on an instrumentation point, or marker, is referred to as probing a static tracepoint marker. gdbserver supports tracepoints on some target systems. See Section 20.3 [Tracepoints support in gdbserver], page 221. This section describes commands to set tracepoints and associated conditions and actions.

13.1.1 Create and Delete Tracepoints

trace location The trace command is very similar to the break command. Its argument location can be a source line, a function name, or an address in the target program. See Section 9.2 [Specify Location], page 88. The trace command defines a tracepoint, which is a point in the target program where the debugger will briefly stop, collect some data, and then allow the program to continue. Setting a tracepoint or changing its actions takes effect immediately if the remote stub supports the InstallInTrace feature (see [install tracepoint in tracing], page 488). If remote stub doesnt support the InstallInTrace feature, all these changes dont take effect until the next tstart command, and once a trace experiment is running, further changes will not have any effect until the next trace experiment starts. In addition, gdb supports pending tracepointstracepoints whose address is not yet resolved. (This is similar to pending breakpoints.) Pending tracepoints are not downloaded to the target and not installed until they are resolved. The resolution of pending tracepoints requires gdb supportwhen debugging with the remote target, and gdb disconnects from the remote stub (see [disconnected tracing], page 148), pending tracepoints can not be resolved (and downloaded to the remote stub) while gdb is disconnected. Here are some examples of using the trace command:
(gdb) trace foo.c:121 (gdb) trace +2 (gdb) trace my function // a source file and line number // 2 lines forward // first source line of function

(gdb) trace *my function // EXACT start address of function (gdb) trace *0x2117c4 // an address

You can abbreviate trace as tr.

Chapter 13: Tracepoints

141

trace location if cond Set a tracepoint with condition cond; evaluate the expression cond each time the tracepoint is reached, and collect data only if the value is nonzerothat is, if cond evaluates as true. See Section 13.1.4 [Tracepoint Conditions], page 143, for more information on tracepoint conditions. ftrace location [ if cond ] The ftrace command sets a fast tracepoint. For targets that support them, fast tracepoints will use a more efficient but possibly less general technique to trigger data collection, such as a jump instruction instead of a trap, or some sort of hardware support. It may not be possible to create a fast tracepoint at the desired location, in which case the command will exit with an explanatory message. gdb handles arguments to ftrace exactly as for trace. On 32-bit x86-architecture systems, fast tracepoints normally need to be placed at an instruction that is 5 bytes or longer, but can be placed at 4-byte instructions if the low 64K of memory of the target program is available to install trampolines. Some Unix-type systems, such as gnu/Linux, exclude low addresses from the programs address space; but for instance with the Linux kernel it is possible to let gdb use this area by doing a sysctl command to set the mmap_min_addr kernel parameter, as in sudo sysctl -w vm.mmap_min_addr=32768 which sets the low address to 32K, which leaves plenty of room for trampolines. The minimum address should be set to a page boundary. strace location [ if cond ] The strace command sets a static tracepoint. For targets that support it, setting a static tracepoint probes a static instrumentation point, or marker, found at location. It may not be possible to set a static tracepoint at the desired location, in which case the command will exit with an explanatory message. gdb handles arguments to strace exactly as for trace, with the addition that the user can also specify -m marker as location. This probes the marker identified by the marker string identifier. This identifier depends on the static tracepoint backend library your program is using. You can find all the marker identifiers in the ID field of the info static-tracepoint-markers command output. See Section 13.1.8 [Listing Static Tracepoint Markers], page 147. For example, in the following small program using the UST tracing engine:
main () { trace_mark(ust, bar33, "str %s", "FOOBAZ"); }

the marker id is composed of joining the first two arguments to the trace_mark call with a slash, which translates to:
(gdb) info static-tracepoint-markers Cnt Enb ID Address What 1 n ust/bar33 0x0000000000400ddc in main at stexample.c:22 Data: "str %s"

142

Debugging with gdb

[etc...]

so you may probe the marker above with:

(gdb) strace -m ust/bar33

Static tracepoints accept an extra collect action collect $_sdata. This collects arbitrary user data passed in the probe point call to the tracing library. In the UST example above, youll see that the third argument to trace_mark is a printf-like format string. The user data is then the result of running that formating string against the following arguments. Note that info statictracepoint-markers command output lists that format string in the Data: field. You can inspect this data when analyzing the trace buffer, by printing the $ sdata variable like any other variable available to gdb. See Section 13.1.6 [Tracepoint Action Lists], page 144. The convenience variable $tpnum records the tracepoint number of the most recently set tracepoint. delete tracepoint [num] Permanently delete one or more tracepoints. With no argument, the default is to delete all tracepoints. Note that the regular delete command can remove tracepoints also. Examples:
(gdb) delete trace 1 2 3 // remove three tracepoints (gdb) delete trace // remove all tracepoints

You can abbreviate this command as del tr.

13.1.2 Enable and Disable Tracepoints

These commands are deprecated; they are equivalent to plain disable and enable. disable tracepoint [num] Disable tracepoint num, or all tracepoints if no argument num is given. A disabled tracepoint will have no effect during a trace experiment, but it is not forgotten. You can re-enable a disabled tracepoint using the enable tracepoint command. If the command is issued during a trace experiment and the debug target has support for disabling tracepoints during a trace experiment, then the change will be effective immediately. Otherwise, it will be applied to the next trace experiment. enable tracepoint [num] Enable tracepoint num, or all tracepoints. If this command is issued during a trace experiment and the debug target supports enabling tracepoints during a trace experiment, then the enabled tracepoints will become effective immediately. Otherwise, they will become effective the next time a trace experiment is run.

Chapter 13: Tracepoints

143

13.1.3 Tracepoint Passcounts

passcount [n [num]] Set the passcount of a tracepoint. The passcount is a way to automatically stop a trace experiment. If a tracepoints passcount is n, then the trace experiment will be automatically stopped on the nth time that tracepoint is hit. If the tracepoint number num is not specified, the passcount command sets the passcount of the most recently defined tracepoint. If no passcount is given, the trace experiment will run until stopped explicitly by the user. Examples:
(gdb) passcount 5 2 // Stop on the 5th execution of // tracepoint 2 (gdb) passcount 12 (gdb) (gdb) (gdb) (gdb) (gdb) (gdb) trace foo pass 3 trace bar pass 2 trace baz pass 1 // Stop on the 12th execution of the // most recently defined tracepoint.

// Stop tracing when foo has been // executed 3 times OR when bar has // been executed 2 times // OR when baz has been executed 1 time.

13.1.4 Tracepoint Conditions

The simplest sort of tracepoint collects data every time your program reaches a specified place. You can also specify a condition for a tracepoint. A condition is just a Boolean expression in your programming language (see Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97). A tracepoint with a condition evaluates the expression each time your program reaches it, and data collection happens only if the condition is true. Tracepoint conditions can be specified when a tracepoint is set, by using if in the arguments to the trace command. See Section 13.1.1 [Setting Tracepoints], page 140. They can also be set or changed at any time with the condition command, just as with breakpoints. Unlike breakpoint conditions, gdb does not actually evaluate the conditional expression itself. Instead, gdb encodes the expression into an agent expression (see Appendix F [Agent Expressions], page 521) suitable for execution on the target, independently of gdb. Global variables become raw memory locations, locals become stack accesses, and so forth. For instance, suppose you have a function that is usually called frequently, but should not be called after an error has occurred. You could use the following tracepoint command to collect data about calls of that function that happen while the error code is propagating through the program; an unconditional tracepoint could end up collecting thousands of useless trace frames that you would have to search through.
(gdb) trace normal_operation if errcode > 0

13.1.5 Trace State Variables

A trace state variable is a special type of variable that is created and managed by target-side code. The syntax is the same as that for GDBs convenience variables (a string prefixed

144

Debugging with gdb

with $), but they are stored on the target. They must be created explicitly, using a tvariable command. They are always 64-bit signed integers. Trace state variables are remembered by gdb, and downloaded to the target along with tracepoint information when the trace experiment starts. There are no intrinsic limits on the number of trace state variables, beyond memory limitations of the target. Although trace state variables are managed by the target, you can use them in print commands and expressions as if they were convenience variables; gdb will get the current value from the target while the trace experiment is running. Trace state variables share the same namespace as other $ variables, which means that you cannot have trace state variables with names like $23 or $pc, nor can you have a trace state variable and a convenience variable with the same name. tvariable $name [ = expression ] The tvariable command creates a new trace state variable named $name, and optionally gives it an initial value of expression. expression is evaluated when this command is entered; the result will be converted to an integer if possible, otherwise gdb will report an error. A subsequent tvariable command specifying the same name does not create a variable, but instead assigns the supplied initial value to the existing variable of that name, overwriting any previous initial value. The default initial value is 0. info tvariables List all the trace state variables along with their initial values. Their current values may also be displayed, if the trace experiment is currently running. delete tvariable [ $name ... ] Delete the given trace state variables, or all of them if no arguments are specified.

13.1.6 Tracepoint Action Lists

actions [num] This command will prompt for a list of actions to be taken when the tracepoint is hit. If the tracepoint number num is not specified, this command sets the actions for the one that was most recently defined (so that you can define a tracepoint and then say actions without bothering about its number). You specify the actions themselves on the following lines, one action at a time, and terminate the actions list with a line containing just end. So far, the only defined actions are collect, teval, and while-stepping. actions is actually equivalent to commands (see Section 5.1.7 [Breakpoint Command Lists], page 59), except that only the defined actions are allowed; any other gdb command is rejected. To remove all actions from a tracepoint, type actions num and follow it immediately with end.
(gdb) collect data // collect some data (gdb) while-stepping 5 // single-step 5 times, collect data (gdb) end // signals the end of actions.

Chapter 13: Tracepoints

145

In the following example, the action list begins with collect commands indicating the things to be collected when the tracepoint is hit. Then, in order to single-step and collect additional data following the tracepoint, a whilestepping command is used, followed by the list of things to be collected after each step in a sequence of single steps. The while-stepping command is terminated by its own separate end command. Lastly, the action list is terminated by an end command.
(gdb) trace foo (gdb) actions Enter actions for tracepoint 1, one per line: > collect bar,baz > collect $regs > while-stepping 12 > collect $pc, arr[i] > end end

collect[/mods] expr1, expr2, ... Collect values of the given expressions when the tracepoint is hit. This command accepts a comma-separated list of any valid expressions. In addition to global, static, or local variables, the following special arguments are supported: $regs $args $locals $_ret $_sdata Collect all registers. Collect all function arguments. Collect all local variables. Collect the return address. This is helpful if you want to see more of a backtrace. Collect static tracepoint marker specific data. Only available for static tracepoints. See Section 13.1.6 [Tracepoint Action Lists], page 144. On the UST static tracepoints library backend, an instrumentation point resembles a printf function call. The tracing library is able to collect user specified data formatted to a character string using the format provided by the programmer that instrumented the program. Other backends have similar mechanisms. Heres an example of a UST marker call:
const char master_name[] = "$your_name"; trace_mark(channel1, marker1, "hello %s", master_name)

In this case, collecting $_sdata collects the string hello $yourname. When analyzing the trace buffer, you can inspect $_sdata like any other variable available to gdb. You can give several consecutive collect commands, each one with a single argument, or one collect command with several arguments separated by commas; the effect is the same. The optional mods changes the usual handling of the arguments. s requests that pointers to chars be handled as strings, in particular collecting the contents of the memory being pointed at, up to the first zero. The upper bound is by default the value of the print elements variable; if s is followed by a decimal

146

Debugging with gdb

number, that is the upper bound instead. So for instance collect/s25 mystr collects as many as 25 characters at mystr. The command info scope (see Chapter 16 [Symbols], page 189) is particularly useful for figuring out what data to collect. teval expr1, expr2, ... Evaluate the given expressions when the tracepoint is hit. This command accepts a comma-separated list of expressions. The results are discarded, so this is mainly useful for assigning values to trace state variables (see Section 13.1.5 [Trace State Variables], page 143) without adding those values to the trace buffer, as would be the case if the collect action were used. while-stepping n Perform n single-step instruction traces after the tracepoint, collecting new data after each step. The while-stepping command is followed by the list of what to collect while stepping (followed by its own end command):
> while-stepping 12 > collect $regs, myglobal > end >

Note that $pc is not automatically collected by while-stepping; you need to explicitly collect that register if you need it. You may abbreviate whilestepping as ws or stepping. set default-collect expr1, expr2, ... This variable is a list of expressions to collect at each tracepoint hit. It is effectively an additional collect action prepended to every tracepoint action list. The expressions are parsed individually for each tracepoint, so for instance a variable named xyz may be interpreted as a global for one tracepoint, and a local for another, as appropriate to the tracepoints location. show default-collect Show the list of expressions that are collected by default at each tracepoint hit.

13.1.7 Listing Tracepoints

info tracepoints [num...] Display information about the tracepoint num. If you dont specify a tracepoint number, displays information about all the tracepoints defined so far. The format is similar to that used for info breakpoints; in fact, info tracepoints is the same command, simply restricting itself to tracepoints. A tracepoints listing may include additional information specific to tracing: its passcount as given by the passcount n command
(gdb) info trace Num Type Disp Enb Address What 1 tracepoint keep y 0x0804ab57 in foo() at [Link] while-stepping 20 collect globfoo, $regs end collect globfoo2 end

Chapter 13: Tracepoints

147

pass count 1200 (gdb)

This command can be abbreviated info tp.

13.1.8 Listing Static Tracepoint Markers

info static-tracepoint-markers Display information about all static tracepoint markers defined in the program. For each marker, the following columns are printed: Count ID An incrementing counter, output to help readability. This is not a stable identifier. The marker ID, as reported by the target.

Enabled or Disabled Probed markers are tagged with y. n identifies marks that are not enabled. Address What Where the marker is in your program, as a memory address. Where the marker is in the source for your program, as a file and line number. If the debug information included in the program does not allow gdb to locate the source of the marker, this column will be left blank.

In addition, the following information may be printed for each marker: Data User data passed to the tracing library by the marker call. In the UST backend, this is the format string passed as argument to the marker call.

Static tracepoints probing the marker The list of static tracepoints attached to the marker.
(gdb) info static-tracepoint-markers Cnt ID Enb Address What 1 ust/bar2 y 0x0000000000400e1a in main at stexample.c:25 Data: number1 %d number2 %d Probed by static tracepoints: #2 2 ust/bar33 n 0x0000000000400c87 in main at stexample.c:24 Data: str %s (gdb)

13.1.9 Starting and Stopping Trace Experiments

tstart This command takes no arguments. It starts the trace experiment, and begins collecting data. This has the side effect of discarding all the data collected in the trace buffer during the previous trace experiment. This command takes no arguments. It ends the trace experiment, and stops collecting data. Note: a trace experiment and data collection may stop automatically if any tracepoints passcount is reached (see Section 13.1.3 [Tracepoint Passcounts], page 143), or if the trace buffer becomes full.

tstop

148

Debugging with gdb

tstatus

This command displays the status of the current trace data collection.

Here is an example of the commands we described so far:

(gdb) trace gdb c test (gdb) actions Enter actions for tracepoint #1, one per line. > collect $regs,$locals,$args > while-stepping 11 > collect $regs > end > end (gdb) tstart [time passes ...] (gdb) tstop

You can choose to continue running the trace experiment even if gdb disconnects from the target, voluntarily or involuntarily. For commands such as detach, the debugger will ask what you want to do with the trace. But for unexpected terminations (gdb crash, network outage), it would be unfortunate to lose hard-won trace data, so the variable disconnected-tracing lets you decide whether the trace should continue running without gdb. set disconnected-tracing on set disconnected-tracing off Choose whether a tracing run should continue to run if gdb has disconnected from the target. Note that detach or quit will ask you directly what to do about a running trace no matter what this variables setting, so the variable is mainly useful for handling unexpected situations, such as loss of the network. show disconnected-tracing Show the current choice for disconnected tracing. When you reconnect to the target, the trace experiment may or may not still be running; it might have filled the trace buffer in the meantime, or stopped for one of the other reasons. If it is running, it will continue after reconnection. Upon reconnection, the target will upload information about the tracepoints in effect. gdb will then compare that information to the set of tracepoints currently defined, and attempt to match them up, allowing for the possibility that the numbers may have changed due to creation and deletion in the meantime. If one of the targets tracepoints does not match any in gdb, the debugger will create a new tracepoint, so that you have a number with which to specify that tracepoint. This matching-up process is necessarily heuristic, and it may result in useless tracepoints being created; you may simply delete them if they are of no use. If your target agent supports a circular trace buffer, then you can run a trace experiment indefinitely without filling the trace buffer; when space runs out, the agent deletes alreadycollected trace frames, oldest first, until there is enough room to continue collecting. This is especially useful if your tracepoints are being hit too often, and your trace gets terminated prematurely because the buffer is full. To ask for a circular trace buffer, simply set circular-trace-buffer to on. You can set this at any time, including during tracing; if the agent can do it, it will change buffer handling on the fly, otherwise it will not take effect until the next run.

Chapter 13: Tracepoints

149

set circular-trace-buffer on set circular-trace-buffer off Choose whether a tracing run should use a linear or circular buffer for trace data. A linear buffer will not lose any trace data, but may fill up prematurely, while a circular buffer will discard old trace data, but it will have always room for the latest tracepoint hits. show circular-trace-buffer Show the current choice for the trace buffer. Note that this may not match the agents current buffer handling, nor is it guaranteed to match the setting that might have been in effect during a past run, for instance if you are looking at frames from a trace file.

13.1.10 Tracepoint Restrictions

There are a number of restrictions on the use of tracepoints. As described above, tracepoint data gathering occurs on the target without interaction from gdb. Thus the full capabilities of the debugger are not available during data gathering, and then at data examination time, you will be limited by only having what was collected. The following items describe some common problems, but it is not exhaustive, and you may run into additional difficulties not mentioned here. Tracepoint expressions are intended to gather objects (lvalues). Thus the full flexibility of GDBs expression evaluator is not available. You cannot call functions, cast objects to aggregate types, access convenience variables or modify values (except by assignment to trace state variables). Some language features may implicitly call functions (for instance Objective-C fields with accessors), and therefore cannot be collected either. Collection of local variables, either individually or in bulk with $locals or $args, during while-stepping may behave erratically. The stepping action may enter a new scope (for instance by stepping into a function), or the location of the variable may change (for instance it is loaded into a register). The tracepoint data recorded uses the location information for the variables that is correct for the tracepoint location. When the tracepoint is created, it is not possible, in general, to determine where the steps of a while-stepping sequence will advance the programparticularly if a conditional branch is stepped. Collection of an incompletely-initialized or partially-destroyed object may result in something that gdb cannot display, or displays in a misleading way. When gdb displays a pointer to character it automatically dereferences the pointer to also display characters of the string being pointed to. However, collecting the pointer during tracing does not automatically collect the string. You need to explicitly dereference the pointer and provide size information if you want to collect not only the pointer, but the memory pointed to. For example, *ptr@50 can be used to collect the 50 element array pointed to by ptr. It is not possible to collect a complete stack backtrace at a tracepoint. Instead, you may collect the registers and a few hundred bytes from the stack pointer with something like *(unsigned char *)$esp@300 (adjust to use the name of the actual stack pointer register on your target architecture, and the amount of stack you wish to capture). Then the backtrace command will show a partial backtrace when using a trace frame.

150

Debugging with gdb

The number of stack frames that can be examined depends on the sizes of the frames in the collected stack. Note that if you ask for a block so large that it goes past the bottom of the stack, the target agent may report an error trying to read from an invalid address. If you do not collect registers at a tracepoint, gdb can infer that the value of $pc must be the same as the address of the tracepoint and use that when you are looking at a trace frame for that tracepoint. However, this cannot work if the tracepoint has multiple locations (for instance if it was set in a function that was inlined), or if it has a while-stepping loop. In those cases gdb will warn you that it cant infer $pc, and default it to zero.

13.2 Using the Collected Data

After the tracepoint experiment ends, you use gdb commands for examining the trace data. The basic idea is that each tracepoint collects a trace snapshot every time it is hit and another snapshot every time it single-steps. All these snapshots are consecutively numbered from zero and go into a buffer, and you can examine them later. The way you examine them is to focus on a specific trace snapshot. When the remote stub is focused on a trace snapshot, it will respond to all gdb requests for memory and registers by reading from the buffer which belongs to that snapshot, rather than from real memory or registers of the program being debugged. This means that all gdb commands (print, info registers, backtrace, etc.) will behave as if we were currently debugging the program state as it was when the tracepoint occurred. Any requests for data that are not in the buffer will fail.

13.2.1 tfind n
The basic command for selecting a trace snapshot from the buffer is tfind n, which finds trace snapshot number n, counting from zero. If no argument n is given, the next snapshot is selected. Here are the various forms of using the tfind command. tfind start Find the first snapshot in the buffer. This is a synonym for tfind 0 (since 0 is the number of the first snapshot). tfind none Stop debugging trace snapshots, resume live debugging. tfind end Same as tfind none. tfind tfind No argument means find the next trace snapshot. Find the previous trace snapshot before the current one. This permits retracing earlier steps.

tfind tracepoint num Find the next snapshot associated with tracepoint num. Search proceeds forward from the last examined trace snapshot. If no argument num is given, it means find the next snapshot collected for the same tracepoint as the current snapshot.

Chapter 13: Tracepoints

151

tfind pc addr Find the next snapshot associated with the value addr of the program counter. Search proceeds forward from the last examined trace snapshot. If no argument addr is given, it means find the next snapshot with the same value of PC as the current snapshot. tfind outside addr1, addr2 Find the next snapshot whose PC is outside the given range of addresses (exclusive). tfind range addr1, addr2 Find the next snapshot whose PC is between addr1 and addr2 (inclusive). tfind line [file:]n Find the next snapshot associated with the source line n. If the optional argument file is given, refer to line n in that source file. Search proceeds forward from the last examined trace snapshot. If no argument n is given, it means find the next line other than the one currently being examined; thus saying tfind line repeatedly can appear to have the same effect as stepping from line to line in a live debugging session. The default arguments for the tfind commands are specifically designed to make it easy to scan through the trace buffer. For instance, tfind with no argument selects the next trace snapshot, and tfind - with no argument selects the previous trace snapshot. So, by giving one tfind command, and then simply hitting RET repeatedly you can examine all the trace snapshots in order. Or, by saying tfind - and then hitting RET repeatedly you can examine the snapshots in reverse order. The tfind line command with no argument selects the snapshot for the next source line executed. The tfind pc command with no argument selects the next snapshot with the same program counter (PC) as the current frame. The tfind tracepoint command with no argument selects the next trace snapshot collected by the same tracepoint as the current one. In addition to letting you scan through the trace buffer manually, these commands make it easy to construct gdb scripts that scan through the trace buffer and print out whatever collected data you are interested in. Thus, if we want to examine the PC, FP, and SP registers from each trace frame in the buffer, we can say this:
(gdb) tfind start (gdb) while ($trace frame != -1) > printf "Frame %d, PC = %08X, SP = %08X, FP = %08X\n", \ $trace_frame, $pc, $sp, $fp > tfind > end Frame Frame Frame Frame Frame Frame Frame Frame Frame Frame 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC = = = = = = = = = = 0020DC64, 0020DC6C, 0020DC70, 0020DC74, 0020DC78, 0020DC7C, 0020DC80, 0020DC84, 0020DC88, 0020DC8E, SP SP SP SP SP SP SP SP SP SP = = = = = = = = = = 0030BF3C, 0030BF38, 0030BF34, 0030BF30, 0030BF2C, 0030BF28, 0030BF24, 0030BF20, 0030BF1C, 0030BF18, FP FP FP FP FP FP FP FP FP FP = = = = = = = = = = 0030BF44 0030BF44 0030BF44 0030BF44 0030BF44 0030BF44 0030BF44 0030BF44 0030BF44 0030BF44

152

Debugging with gdb

Frame 10, PC = 00203F6C, SP = 0030BE3C, FP = 0030BF14

Or, if we want to examine the variable X at each source line in the buffer:
(gdb) tfind start (gdb) while ($trace frame != -1) > printf "Frame %d, X == %d\n", $trace_frame, X > tfind line > end Frame 0, X = 1 Frame 7, X = 2 Frame 13, X = 255

13.2.2 tdump
This command takes no arguments. It prints all the data collected at the current trace snapshot.
(gdb) trace 444 (gdb) actions Enter actions for tracepoint #2, one per line: > collect $regs, $locals, $args, gdb_long_test > end (gdb) tstart (gdb) tfind line 444 #0 gdb_test (p1=0x11, p2=0x22, p3=0x33, p4=0x44, p5=0x55, p6=0x66) at gdb_test.c:444 444 printp( "%s: arguments = 0x%X 0x%X 0x%X 0x%X 0x%X 0x%X\n", ) (gdb) tdump Data collected at tracepoint 2, trace frame 1: d0 0xc4aa0085 -995491707 d1 0x18 24 d2 0x80 128 d3 0x33 51 d4 0x71aea3d 119204413 d5 0x22 34 d6 0xe0 224 d7 0x380035 3670069 a0 0x19e24a 1696330 a1 0x3000668 50333288 a2 0x100 256 a3 0x322000 3284992 a4 0x3000698 50333336 a5 0x1ad3cc 1758156 fp 0x30bf3c 0x30bf3c sp 0x30bf34 0x30bf34 ps 0x0 0 pc 0x20b2c8 0x20b2c8 fpcontrol 0x0 0 fpstatus 0x0 0 fpiaddr 0x0 0 p = 0x20e5b4 "gdb-test" p1 = (void *) 0x11 p2 = (void *) 0x22 p3 = (void *) 0x33 p4 = (void *) 0x44

Chapter 13: Tracepoints

153

p5 = (void *) 0x55 p6 = (void *) 0x66 gdb_long_test = 17 \021 (gdb)

tdump works by scanning the tracepoints current collection actions and printing the value of each expression listed. So tdump can fail, if after a run, you change the tracepoints actions to mention variables that were not collected during the run. Also, for tracepoints with while-stepping loops, tdump uses the collected value of $pc to distinguish between trace frames that were collected at the tracepoint hit, and frames that were collected while stepping. This allows it to correctly choose whether to display the basic list of collections, or the collections from the body of the while-stepping loop. However, if $pc was not collected, then tdump will always attempt to dump using the basic collection list, and may fail if a while-stepping frame does not include all the same data that is collected at the tracepoint hit.

13.2.3 save tracepoints filename

This command saves all current tracepoint definitions together with their actions and passcounts, into a file filename suitable for use in a later debugging session. To read the saved tracepoint definitions, use the source command (see Section 23.1.3 [Command Files], page 278). The save-tracepoints command is a deprecated alias for save tracepoints

13.3 Convenience Variables for Tracepoints

(int) $trace_frame The current trace snapshot (a.k.a. frame) number, or -1 if no snapshot is selected. (int) $tracepoint The tracepoint for the current trace snapshot. (int) $trace_line The line number for the current trace snapshot. (char []) $trace_file The source file for the current trace snapshot. (char []) $trace_func The name of the function containing $tracepoint. Note: $trace_file is not suitable for use in printf, use output instead. Heres a simple example of using these convenience variables for stepping through all the trace snapshots and printing some of their data. Note that these are not the same as trace state variables, which are managed by the target.
(gdb) tfind start (gdb) while $trace frame != -1 > output $trace_file > printf ", line %d (tracepoint #%d)\n", $trace_line, $tracepoint > tfind > end

154

Debugging with gdb

13.4 Using Trace Files

In some situations, the target running a trace experiment may no longer be available; perhaps it crashed, or the hardware was needed for a different activity. To handle these cases, you can arrange to dump the trace data into a file, and later use that file as a source of trace data, via the target tfile command. tsave [ -r ] filename Save the trace data to filename. By default, this command assumes that filename refers to the host filesystem, so if necessary gdb will copy raw trace data up from the target and then save it. If the target supports it, you can also supply the optional argument -r (remote) to direct the target to save the data directly into filename in its own filesystem, which may be more efficient if the trace buffer is very large. (Note, however, that target tfile can only read from files accessible to the host.) target tfile filename Use the file named filename as a source of trace data. Commands that examine data work as they do with a live target, but it is not possible to run any new trace experiments. tstatus will report the state of the trace run at the moment the data was saved, as well as the current trace frame you are examining. filename must be on a filesystem accessible to the host.

Chapter 14: Debugging Programs That Use Overlays

155

14 Debugging Programs That Use Overlays

If your program is too large to fit completely in your target systems memory, you can sometimes use overlays to work around this problem. gdb provides some support for debugging programs that use overlays.

14.1 How Overlays Work

Suppose you have a computer whose instruction address space is only 64 kilobytes long, but which has much more memory which can be accessed by other means: special instructions, segment registers, or memory management hardware, for example. Suppose further that you want to adapt a program which is larger than 64 kilobytes to run on this system. One solution is to identify modules of your program which are relatively independent, and need not call each other directly; call these modules overlays. Separate the overlays from the main program, and place their machine code in the larger memory. Place your main program in instruction memory, but leave at least enough space there to hold the largest overlay as well. Now, to call a function located in an overlay, you must first copy that overlays machine code from the large memory into the space set aside for it in the instruction memory, and then jump to its entry point there.
Data Address Space +-----------+ | | +-----------+ | program | | variables | | and heap | +-----------+ | | +-----------+ Instruction Larger Address Space Address Space +-----------+ +-----------+ | | | | +-----------+ +-----------+<-- overlay 1 | main | .----| overlay 1 | load address | program | | +-----------+ | | | | | | | | +-----------+<-- overlay 2 +-----------+ | | | load address | | | .-| overlay 2 | | | | | | | mapped --->+-----------+ | | +-----------+ address | | | | | | | overlay | <- | | | | area | <--- +-----------+<-- overlay 3 | | <---. | | load address +-----------+ --| overlay 3 | | | | | +-----------+ | | +-----------+ | | +-----------+ A code overlay

The diagram (see [A code overlay], page 155) shows a system with separate data and instruction address spaces. To map an overlay, the program copies its code from the larger address space to the instruction address space. Since the overlays shown here all use the same mapped address, only one may be mapped at a time. For a system with a single address space for data and instructions, the diagram would be similar, except that the program variables and heap would share an address space with the main program and the overlay area.

156

Debugging with gdb

An overlay loaded into instruction memory and ready for use is called a mapped overlay; its mapped address is its address in the instruction memory. An overlay not present (or only partially present) in instruction memory is called unmapped; its load address is its address in the larger memory. The mapped address is also called the virtual memory address, or VMA; the load address is also called the load memory address, or LMA. Unfortunately, overlays are not a completely transparent way to adapt a program to limited instruction memory. They introduce a new set of global constraints you must keep in mind as you design your program: Before calling or returning to a function in an overlay, your program must make sure that overlay is actually mapped. Otherwise, the call or return will transfer control to the right address, but in the wrong overlay, and your program will probably crash. If the process of mapping an overlay is expensive on your system, you will need to choose your overlays carefully to minimize their effect on your programs performance. The executable file you load onto your system must contain each overlays instructions, appearing at the overlays load address, not its mapped address. However, each overlays instructions must be relocated and its symbols defined as if the overlay were at its mapped address. You can use GNU linker scripts to specify different load and relocation addresses for pieces of your program; see Section Overlay Description in Using ld: the GNU linker. The procedure for loading executable files onto your system must be able to load their contents into the larger address space as well as the instruction and data spaces. The overlay system described above is rather simple, and could be improved in many ways: If your system has suitable bank switch registers or memory management hardware, you could use those facilities to make an overlays load area contents simply appear at their mapped address in instruction space. This would probably be faster than copying the overlay to its mapped area in the usual way. If your overlays are small enough, you could set aside more than one overlay area, and have more than one overlay mapped at a time. You can use overlays to manage data, as well as instructions. In general, data overlays are even less transparent to your design than code overlays: whereas code overlays only require care when you call or return to functions, data overlays require care every time you access the data. Also, if you change the contents of a data overlay, you must copy its contents back out to its load address before you can copy a different data overlay into the same mapped area.

14.2 Overlay Commands

To use gdbs overlay support, each overlay in your program must correspond to a separate section of the executable file. The sections virtual memory address and load memory address must be the overlays mapped and load addresses. Identifying overlays with sections allows gdb to determine the appropriate address of a function or variable, depending on whether the overlay is mapped or not. gdbs overlay commands all start with the word overlay; you can abbreviate this as ov or ovly. The commands are:

Chapter 14: Debugging Programs That Use Overlays

157

overlay off Disable gdbs overlay support. When overlay support is disabled, gdb assumes that all functions and variables are always present at their mapped addresses. By default, gdbs overlay support is disabled. overlay manual Enable manual overlay debugging. In this mode, gdb relies on you to tell it which overlays are mapped, and which are not, using the overlay map-overlay and overlay unmap-overlay commands described below. overlay map-overlay overlay overlay map overlay Tell gdb that overlay is now mapped; overlay must be the name of the object file section containing the overlay. When an overlay is mapped, gdb assumes it can find the overlays functions and variables at their mapped addresses. gdb assumes that any other overlays whose mapped ranges overlap that of overlay are now unmapped. overlay unmap-overlay overlay overlay unmap overlay Tell gdb that overlay is no longer mapped; overlay must be the name of the object file section containing the overlay. When an overlay is unmapped, gdb assumes it can find the overlays functions and variables at their load addresses. overlay auto Enable automatic overlay debugging. In this mode, gdb consults a data structure the overlay manager maintains in the inferior to see which overlays are mapped. For details, see Section 14.3 [Automatic Overlay Debugging], page 158. overlay load-target overlay load Re-read the overlay table from the inferior. Normally, gdb re-reads the table gdb automatically each time the inferior stops, so this command should only be necessary if you have changed the overlay mapping yourself using gdb. This command is only useful when using automatic overlay debugging. overlay list-overlays overlay list Display a list of the overlays currently mapped, along with their mapped addresses, load addresses, and sizes. Normally, when gdb prints a code address, it includes the name of the function the address falls in:
(gdb) print main $3 = {int ()} 0x11a0 <main>

When overlay debugging is enabled, gdb recognizes code in unmapped overlays, and prints the names of unmapped functions with asterisks around them. For example, if foo is a function in an unmapped overlay, gdb prints it this way:
(gdb) overlay list No sections are mapped. (gdb) print foo

158

Debugging with gdb

$5 = {int (int)} 0x100000 <*foo*>

When foos overlay is mapped, gdb prints the functions name normally:
(gdb) overlay list Section .[Link], loaded at 0x100000 - 0x100034, mapped at 0x1016 - 0x104a (gdb) print foo $6 = {int (int)} 0x1016 <foo>

When overlay debugging is enabled, gdb can find the correct address for functions and variables in an overlay, whether or not the overlay is mapped. This allows most gdb commands, like break and disassemble, to work normally, even on unmapped code. However, gdbs breakpoint support has some limitations: You can set breakpoints in functions in unmapped overlays, as long as gdb can write to the overlay at its load address. gdb can not set hardware or simulator-based breakpoints in unmapped overlays. However, if you set a breakpoint at the end of your overlay manager (and tell gdb which overlays are now mapped, if you are using manual overlay management), gdb will re-set its breakpoints properly.

14.3 Automatic Overlay Debugging

gdb can automatically track which overlays are mapped and which are not, given some simple co-operation from the overlay manager in the inferior. If you enable automatic overlay debugging with the overlay auto command (see Section 14.2 [Overlay Commands], page 156), gdb looks in the inferiors memory for certain variables describing the current state of the overlays. Here are the variables your overlay manager must define to support gdbs automatic overlay debugging: _ovly_table: This variable must be an array of the following structures:
struct { /* The overlays mapped address. unsigned long vma; */

/* The size of the overlay, in bytes. unsigned long size; /* The overlays load address. unsigned long lma; */

*/

/* Non-zero if the overlay is currently mapped; zero otherwise. */ unsigned long mapped; }

_novlys:

This variable must be a four-byte signed integer, holding the total number of elements in _ovly_table.

To decide whether a particular overlay is mapped or not, gdb looks for an entry in _ovly_table whose vma and lma members equal the VMA and LMA of the overlays section

Chapter 14: Debugging Programs That Use Overlays

159

in the executable file. When gdb finds a matching entry, it consults the entrys mapped member to determine whether the overlay is currently mapped. In addition, your overlay manager may define a function called _ovly_debug_event. If this function is defined, gdb will silently set a breakpoint there. If the overlay manager then calls this function whenever it has changed the overlay table, this will enable gdb to accurately keep track of which overlays are in program memory, and update any breakpoints that may be set in overlays. This will allow breakpoints to work even if the overlays are kept in ROM or other non-writable memory while they are not being executed.

14.4 Overlay Sample Program

When linking a program which uses overlays, you must place the overlays at their load addresses, while relocating them to run at their mapped addresses. To do this, you must write a linker script (see Section Overlay Description in Using ld: the GNU linker). Unfortunately, since linker scripts are specific to a particular host system, target architecture, and target memory layout, this manual cannot provide portable sample code demonstrating gdbs overlay support. However, the gdb source distribution does contain an overlaid program, with linker scripts for a few systems, as part of its test suite. The program consists of the following files from gdb/testsuite/[Link]: overlays.c The main program file. ovlymgr.c A simple overlay manager, used by overlays.c. foo.c bar.c baz.c grbx.c [Link] [Link]

Overlay modules, loaded and used by overlays.c. Linker scripts for linking the test program on the d10v-elf and m32r-elf targets.
-g -g -g -g -g -g -g -c overlays.c -c ovlymgr.c -c foo.c -c bar.c -c baz.c -c grbx.c overlays.o ovlymgr.o foo.o bar.o \ baz.o grbx.o -Wl,-[Link] -o overlays

You can build the test program using the d10v-elf GCC cross-compiler like this:
$ $ $ $ $ $ $ d10v-elf-gcc d10v-elf-gcc d10v-elf-gcc d10v-elf-gcc d10v-elf-gcc d10v-elf-gcc d10v-elf-gcc

The build process is identical for any other architecture, except that you must substitute the appropriate compiler and linker script for the target system for d10v-elf-gcc and [Link].

Chapter 15: Using gdb with Different Languages

161

15 Using gdb with Different Languages

Although programming languages generally have common aspects, they are rarely expressed in the same manner. For instance, in ANSI C, dereferencing a pointer p is accomplished by *p, but in Modula-2, it is accomplished by p^. 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 above in your programs native language, and allowing gdb to output values in a manner consistent with the syntax of your programs native language. The language you use to build expressions is called the working language.

15.1 Switching Between Source Languages

There are two ways to control the working languageeither have gdb set it automatically, or select it manually yourself. You can use the set language command for either purpose. On startup, gdb defaults to setting the language automatically. The working language is used to determine how expressions you type are interpreted, how values are printed, etc. In addition to the working language, every source file that gdb knows about has its own working language. For some object file formats, the compiler might indicate which language a particular source file is in. However, most of the time gdb infers the language from the name of the file. The language of a source file controls whether C++ names are demangledthis way backtrace can show each frame appropriately for its own language. There is no way to set the language of a source file from within gdb, but you can set the language associated with a filename extension. See Section 15.2 [Displaying the Language], page 162. This is most commonly a problem when you use a program, such as cfront or f2c, that generates C but is written in another language. In that case, make the program use #line directives in its C output; that way gdb will know the correct language of the source code of the original program, and will display that source code, not the generated C code.

15.1.1 List of Filename Extensions and Languages

If a source file name ends in one of the following extensions, then gdb infers that its language is the one indicated. .ada .ads .adb .a .c .C .cc .cp .cpp .cxx .c++

Ada source file. C source file

C++ source file

162

Debugging with gdb

.d .m .f .F .mod .s .S

D source file Objective-C source file Fortran source file Modula-2 source file Assembler source file. This actually behaves almost like C, but gdb does not skip over function prologues when stepping. See

In addition, you may set the language associated with a filename extension. Section 15.2 [Displaying the Language], page 162.

15.1.2 Setting the Working Language

If you allow gdb to set the language automatically, expressions are interpreted the same way in your debugging session and your program. If you wish, you may set the language manually. To do this, issue the command set language lang, where lang is the name of a language, such as c or modula-2. For a list of the supported languages, type set language. Setting the language manually prevents gdb from updating the working language automatically. This can lead to confusion if you try to debug a program when the working language is not the same as the source language, when an expression is acceptable to both languagesbut means different things. For instance, if the current source file were written in C, and gdb was parsing Modula-2, a command such as:
print a = b + c

might not have the effect you intended. In C, this means to add b and c and place the result in a. The result printed would be the value of a. In Modula-2, this means to compare a to the result of b+c, yielding a BOOLEAN value.

15.1.3 Having gdb Infer the Source Language

To have gdb set the working language automatically, use set language local or set language auto. gdb then infers the working language. That is, when your program stops in a frame (usually by encountering a breakpoint), gdb sets the working language to the language recorded for the function in that frame. If the language for a frame is unknown (that is, if the function or block corresponding to the frame was defined in a source file that does not have a recognized extension), the current working language is not changed, and gdb issues a warning. This may not seem necessary for most programs, which are written entirely in one source language. However, program modules and libraries written in one source language can be used by a main program written in a different source language. Using set language auto in this case frees you from having to set the working language manually.

15.2 Displaying the Language

The following commands help you find out which language is the working language, and also what language source files were written in.

Chapter 15: Using gdb with Different Languages

163

show language Display the current working language. This is the language you can use with commands such as print to build and compute expressions that may involve variables in your program. info frame Display the source language for this frame. This language becomes the working language if you use an identifier from this frame. See Section 8.4 [Information about a Frame], page 85, to identify the other information listed here. info source Display the source language of this source file. See Chapter 16 [Examining the Symbol Table], page 189, to identify the other information listed here. In unusual circumstances, you may have source files with extensions not in the standard list. You can then set the extension associated with a language explicitly: set extension-language ext language Tell gdb that source files with extension ext are to be assumed as written in the source language language. info extensions List all the filename extensions and the associated languages.

15.3 Type and Range Checking

Warning: In this release, the gdb commands for type and range checking are included, but they do not yet have any effect. This section documents the intended facilities. Some languages are designed to guard you against making seemingly common errors through a series of compile- and run-time checks. These include checking the type of arguments to functions and operators, and making sure mathematical overflows are caught at run time. Checks such as these help to ensure a programs correctness once it has been compiled by eliminating type mismatches, and providing active checks for range errors when your program is running. gdb can check for conditions like the above if you wish. Although gdb does not check the statements in your program, it can check expressions entered directly into gdb for evaluation via the print command, for example. As with the working language, gdb can also decide whether or not to check automatically based on your programs source language. See Section 15.4 [Supported Languages], page 165, for the default settings of supported languages.

15.3.1 An Overview of Type Checking

Some languages, such as Modula-2, are strongly typed, meaning that the arguments to operators and functions have to be of the correct type, otherwise an error occurs. These checks prevent type mismatch errors from ever causing any run-time problems. For example,
1 + 2 3 but

error

1 + 2.3

164

Debugging with gdb

The second example fails because the CARDINAL 1 is not type-compatible with the REAL 2.3. For the expressions you use in gdb commands, you can tell the gdb type checker to skip checking; to treat any mismatches as errors and abandon the expression; or to only issue warnings when type mismatches occur, but evaluate the expression anyway. When you choose the last of these, gdb evaluates expressions like the second example above, but also issues a warning. Even if you turn type checking off, there may be other reasons related to type that prevent gdb from evaluating an expression. For instance, gdb does not know how to add an int and a struct foo. These particular type errors have nothing to do with the language in use, and usually arise from expressions, such as the one described above, which make little sense to evaluate anyway. Each language defines to what degree it is strict about type. For instance, both Modula2 and C require the arguments to arithmetical operators to be numbers. In C, enumerated types and pointers can be represented as numbers, so that they are valid arguments to mathematical operators. See Section 15.4 [Supported Languages], page 165, for further details on specific languages. gdb provides some additional commands for controlling the type checker: set check type auto Set type checking on or off based on the current working language. See Section 15.4 [Supported Languages], page 165, for the default settings for each language. set check type on set check type off Set type checking on or off, overriding the default setting for the current working language. Issue a warning if the setting does not match the language default. If any type mismatches occur in evaluating an expression while type checking is on, gdb prints a message and aborts evaluation of the expression. set check type warn Cause the type checker to issue warnings, but to always attempt to evaluate the expression. Evaluating the expression may still be impossible for other reasons. For example, gdb cannot add numbers and structures. show type Show the current setting of the type checker, and whether or not gdb is setting it automatically.

15.3.2 An Overview of Range Checking

In some languages (such as Modula-2), it is an error to exceed the bounds of a type; this is enforced with run-time checks. Such range checking is meant to ensure program correctness by making sure computations do not overflow, or indices on an array element access do not exceed the bounds of the array. For expressions you use in gdb commands, you can tell gdb to treat range errors in one of three ways: ignore them, always treat them as errors and abandon the expression, or issue warnings but evaluate the expression anyway.

Chapter 15: Using gdb with Different Languages

165

A range error can result from numerical overflow, from exceeding an array index bound, or when you type a constant that is not a member of any type. Some languages, however, do not treat overflows as an error. In many implementations of C, mathematical overflow causes the result to wrap around to lower valuesfor example, if m is the largest integer value, and s is the smallest, then
m + 1 s

This, too, is specific to individual languages, and in some cases specific to individual compilers or machines. See Section 15.4 [Supported Languages], page 165, for further details on specific languages. gdb provides some additional commands for controlling the range checker: set check range auto Set range checking on or off based on the current working language. See Section 15.4 [Supported Languages], page 165, for the default settings for each language. set check range on set check range off Set range checking on or off, overriding the default setting for the current working language. A warning is issued if the setting does not match the language default. If a range error occurs and range checking is on, then a message is printed and evaluation of the expression is aborted. set check range warn Output messages when the gdb range checker detects a range error, but attempt to evaluate the expression anyway. Evaluating the expression may still be impossible for other reasons, such as accessing memory that the process does not own (a typical example from many Unix systems). show range Show the current setting of the range checker, and whether or not it is being set automatically by gdb.

15.4 Supported Languages

gdb supports C, C++, D, Objective-C, Fortran, Java, OpenCL C, Pascal, assembly, Modula2, and Ada. Some gdb features may be used in expressions regardless of the language you use: the gdb @ and :: operators, and the {type}addr construct (see Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97) can be used with the constructs of any supported language. The following sections detail to what degree each source language is supported by gdb. These sections are not meant to be language tutorials or references, but serve only as a reference guide to what the gdb expression parser accepts, and what input and output formats should look like for different languages. There are many good books written on each of these languages; please look to these for a language reference or tutorial.

15.4.1 C and C++

Since C and C++ are so closely related, many features of gdb apply to both languages. Whenever this is the case, we discuss those languages together.

166

Debugging with gdb

The C++ debugging facilities are jointly implemented by the C++ compiler and gdb. Therefore, to debug your C++ code effectively, you must compile your C++ programs with a supported C++ compiler, such as gnu g++, or the HP ANSI C++ compiler (aCC).

[Link] C and C++ Operators

Operators must be defined on values of specific types. For instance, + is defined on numbers, but not on structures. Operators are often defined on groups of types. For the purposes of C and C++, the following definitions hold: Integral types include int with any of its storage-class specifiers; char; enum; and, for C++, bool. Floating-point types include float, double, and long double (if supported by the target platform). Pointer types include all types defined as (type *). Scalar types include all of the above. The following operators are supported. They are listed here in order of increasing precedence: , The comma or sequencing operator. Expressions in a comma-separated list are evaluated from left to right, with the result of the entire expression being the last expression evaluated. Assignment. The value of an assignment expression is the value assigned. Defined on scalar types. Used in an expression of the form a op= b, and translated to a = a op b. op= and = have the same precedence. op is any one of the operators |, ^, &, <<, >>, +, -, *, /, %. The ternary operator. a ? b : c can be thought of as: if a then b else c. a should be of an integral type. Logical or. Defined on integral types. Logical and. Defined on integral types. Bitwise or. Defined on integral types. Bitwise exclusive-or. Defined on integral types. Bitwise and. Defined on integral types. Equality and inequality. Defined on scalar types. The value of these expressions is 0 for false and non-zero for true. Less than, greater than, less than or equal, greater than or equal. Defined on scalar types. The value of these expressions is 0 for false and non-zero for true. <<, >> @ +, left shift, and right shift. Defined on integral types. The gdb artificial array operator (see Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97). Addition and subtraction. Defined on integral types, floating-point types and pointer types.

= op=

?: || && | ^ & ==, != <, >, <=, >=

Chapter 15: Using gdb with Different Languages

167

*, /, % ++, --

Multiplication, division, and modulus. Multiplication and division are defined on integral and floating-point types. Modulus is defined on integral types. Increment and decrement. When appearing before a variable, the operation is performed before the variable is used in an expression; when appearing after it, the variables value is used before the operation takes place. Pointer dereferencing. Defined on pointer types. Same precedence as ++. Address operator. Defined on variables. Same precedence as ++. For debugging C++, gdb implements a use of & beyond what is allowed in the C++ language itself: you can use &(&ref) to examine the address where a C++ reference variable (declared with &ref) is stored.

* &

! ~ ., ->

Negative. Defined on integral and floating-point types. Same precedence as ++. Logical negation. Defined on integral types. Same precedence as ++. Bitwise complement operator. Defined on integral types. Same precedence as ++. Structure member, and pointer-to-structure member. For convenience, gdb regards the two as equivalent, choosing whether to dereference a pointer based on the stored type information. Defined on struct and union data. Dereferences of pointers to members. Array indexing. a[i] is defined as *(a+i). Same precedence as ->. Function parameter list. Same precedence as ->. C++ scope resolution operator. Defined on struct, union, and class types. Doubled colons also represent the gdb scope operator (see Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97). Same precedence as ::, above.

.*, ->* [] () :: ::

If an operator is redefined in the user code, gdb usually attempts to invoke the redefined version instead of using the operators predefined meaning.

[Link] C and C++ Constants

gdb allows you to express the constants of C and C++ in the following ways: Integer constants are a sequence of digits. Octal constants are specified by a leading 0 (i.e. zero), and hexadecimal constants by a leading 0x or 0X. Constants may also end with a letter l, specifying that the constant should be treated as a long value. Floating point constants are a sequence of digits, followed by a decimal point, followed by a sequence of digits, and optionally followed by an exponent. An exponent is of the form: e[[+]|-]nnn, where nnn is another sequence of digits. The + is optional for positive exponents. A floating-point constant may also end with a letter f or F, specifying that the constant should be treated as being of the float (as opposed to the default double) type; or with a letter l or L, which specifies a long double constant. Enumerated constants consist of enumerated identifiers, or their integral equivalents.

168

Debugging with gdb

Character constants are a single character surrounded by single quotes (), or a numberthe ordinal value of the corresponding character (usually its ascii value). Within quotes, the single character may be represented by a letter or by escape sequences, which are of the form \nnn, where nnn is the octal representation of the characters ordinal value; or of the form \x, where x is a predefined special characterfor example, \n for newline. Wide character constants can be written by prefixing a character constant with L, as in C. For example, Lx is the wide form of x. The target wide character set is used when computing the value of this constant (see Section 10.19 [Character Sets], page 125). String constants are a sequence of character constants surrounded by double quotes ("). Any valid character constant (as described above) may appear. Double quotes within the string must be preceded by a backslash, so for instance "a\"bc" is a string of five characters. Wide string constants can be written by prefixing a string constant with L, as in C. The target wide character set is used when computing the value of this constant (see Section 10.19 [Character Sets], page 125). Pointer constants are an integral value. You can also write pointers to constants using the C operator &. Array constants are comma-separated lists surrounded by braces { and }; for example, {1,2,3} is a three-element array of integers, {{1,2}, {3,4}, {5,6}} is a three-by-two array, and {&"hi", &"there", &"fred"} is a three-element array of pointers.

[Link] C++ Expressions

gdb expression handling can interpret most C++ expressions. Warning: gdb can only debug C++ code if you use the proper compiler and the proper debug format. Currently, gdb works best when debugging C++ code that is compiled with the most recent version of gcc possible. The DWARF debugging format is preferred; gcc defaults to this on most popular platforms. Other compilers and/or debug formats are likely to work badly or not at all when using gdb to debug C++ code. See Section 4.1 [Compilation], page 25. 1. Member function calls are allowed; you can use expressions like
count = aml->GetOriginal(x, y)

2. While a member function is active (in the selected stack frame), your expressions have the same namespace available as the member function; that is, gdb allows implicit references to the class instance pointer this following the same rules as C++. using declarations in the current scope are also respected by gdb. 3. You can call overloaded functions; gdb resolves the function call to the right definition, with some restrictions. gdb does not perform overload resolution involving user-defined type conversions, calls to constructors, or instantiations of templates that do not exist in the program. It also cannot handle ellipsis argument lists or default arguments. It does perform integral conversions and promotions, floating-point promotions, arithmetic conversions, pointer conversions, conversions of class objects to base classes, and

Chapter 15: Using gdb with Different Languages

169

standard conversions such as those of functions or arrays to pointers; it requires an exact match on the number of function arguments. Overload resolution is always performed, unless you have specified set overloadresolution off. See Section [Link] [gdb Features for C++], page 170. You must specify set overload-resolution off in order to use an explicit function signature to call an overloaded function, as in
p foo(char,int)(x, 13)

The gdb command-completion facility can simplify this; see Section 3.2 [Command Completion], page 19. 4. gdb understands variables declared as C++ references; you can use them in expressions just as you do in C++ sourcethey are automatically dereferenced. In the parameter list shown when gdb displays a frame, the values of reference variables are not displayed (unlike other variables); this avoids clutter, since references are often used for large structures. The address of a reference variable is always shown, unless you have specified set print address off. 5. gdb supports the C++ name resolution operator ::your expressions can use it just as expressions in your program do. Since one scope may be defined in another, you can use :: repeatedly if necessary, for example in an expression like scope1::scope2::name. gdb also allows resolving name scope by reference to source files, in both C and C++ debugging (see Section 10.3 [Program Variables], page 99). 6. gdb performs argument-dependent lookup, following the C++ specification.

[Link] C and C++ Defaults

If you allow gdb to set type and range checking automatically, they both default to off whenever the working language changes to C or C++. This happens regardless of whether you or gdb selects the working language. If you allow gdb to set the language automatically, it recognizes source files whose names end with .c, .C, or .cc, etc, and when gdb enters code compiled from one of these files, it sets the working language to C or C++. See Section 15.1.3 [Having gdb Infer the Source Language], page 162, for further details.

[Link] C and C++ Type and Range Checks

By default, when gdb parses C or C++ expressions, type checking is not used. However, if you turn type checking on, gdb considers two variables type equivalent if: The two variables are structured and have the same structure, union, or enumerated tag. The two variables have the same type name, or types that have been declared equivalent through typedef. Range checking, if turned on, is done on mathematical operations. Array indices are not checked, since they are often used to index a pointer that is not itself an array.

[Link] gdb and C

The set print union and show print union commands apply to the union type. When set to on, any union that is inside a struct or class is also printed. Otherwise, it appears as {...}.

170

Debugging with gdb

The @ operator aids in the debugging of dynamic arrays, formed with pointers and a memory allocation function. See Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97.

[Link] gdb Features for C++

Some gdb commands are particularly useful with C++, and some are designed specifically for use with C++. Here is a summary: breakpoint menus When you want a breakpoint in a function whose name is overloaded, gdb has the capability to display a menu of possible breakpoint locations to help you specify which function definition you want. See Section 10.2 [Ambiguous Expressions], page 98. rbreak regex Setting breakpoints using regular expressions is helpful for setting breakpoints on overloaded functions that are not members of any special classes. See Section 5.1.1 [Setting Breakpoints], page 44. catch throw catch catch Debug C++ exception handling using these commands. See Section 5.1.3 [Setting Catchpoints], page 52. ptype typename Print inheritance relationships as well as other information for type typename. See Chapter 16 [Examining the Symbol Table], page 189. set print demangle show print demangle set print asm-demangle show print asm-demangle Control whether C++ symbols display in their source form, both when displaying code as C++ source and when displaying disassemblies. See Section 10.8 [Print Settings], page 106. set print object show print object Choose whether to print derived (actual) or declared types of objects. See Section 10.8 [Print Settings], page 106. set print vtbl show print vtbl Control the format for printing virtual function tables. See Section 10.8 [Print Settings], page 106. (The vtbl commands do not work on programs compiled with the HP ANSI C++ compiler (aCC).) set overload-resolution on Enable overload resolution for C++ expression evaluation. The default is on. For overloaded functions, gdb evaluates the arguments and searches for a function whose signature matches the argument types, using the standard C++ conversion rules (see Section [Link] [C++ Expressions], page 168, for details). If it cannot find a match, it emits a message.

Chapter 15: Using gdb with Different Languages

171

set overload-resolution off Disable overload resolution for C++ expression evaluation. For overloaded functions that are not class member functions, gdb chooses the first function of the specified name that it finds in the symbol table, whether or not its arguments are of the correct type. For overloaded functions that are class member functions, gdb searches for a function whose signature exactly matches the argument types. show overload-resolution Show the current setting of overload resolution. Overloaded symbol names You can specify a particular definition of an overloaded symbol, using the same notation that is used to declare such symbols in C++: type symbol(types) rather than just symbol. You can also use the gdb command-line word completion facilities to list the available choices, or to finish the type list for you. See Section 3.2 [Command Completion], page 19, for details on how to do this.

[Link] Decimal Floating Point format

gdb can examine, set and perform computations with numbers in decimal floating point format, which in the C language correspond to the _Decimal32, _Decimal64 and _Decimal128 types as specified by the extension to support decimal floating-point arithmetic. There are two encodings in use, depending on the architecture: BID (Binary Integer Decimal) for x86 and x86-64, and DPD (Densely Packed Decimal) for PowerPC. gdb will use the appropriate encoding for the configured target. Because of a limitation in libdecnumber, the library used by gdb to manipulate decimal floating point numbers, it is not possible to convert (using a cast, for example) integers wider than 32-bit to decimal float. In addition, in order to imitate gdbs behaviour with binary floating point computations, error checking in decimal float operations ignores underflow, overflow and divide by zero exceptions. In the PowerPC architecture, gdb provides a set of pseudo-registers to inspect _Decimal128 values stored in floating point registers. See Section 21.4.7 [PowerPC], page 263 for more details.

15.4.2 D
gdb can be used to debug programs written in D and compiled with GDC, LDC or DMD compilers. Currently gdb supports only one D specific feature dynamic arrays.

15.4.3 Objective-C
This section provides information about some commands and command options that are useful for debugging Objective-C code. See also Chapter 16 [Symbols], page 189, and Chapter 16 [Symbols], page 189, for a few more commands specific to Objective-C support.

[Link] Method Names in Commands

The following commands have been extended to accept Objective-C method names as line specifications:

172

Debugging with gdb

clear break info line jump list A fully qualified Objective-C method name is specified as
-[Class methodName]

where the minus sign is used to indicate an instance method and a plus sign (not shown) is used to indicate a class method. The class name Class and method name methodName are enclosed in brackets, similar to the way messages are specified in Objective-C source code. For example, to set a breakpoint at the create instance method of class Fruit in the program currently being debugged, enter:
break -[Fruit create]

To list ten program lines around the initialize class method, enter:
list +[NSText initialize]

In the current version of gdb, the plus or minus sign is required. In future versions of gdb, the plus or minus sign will be optional, but you can use it to narrow the search. It is also possible to specify just a method name:
break create

You must specify the complete method name, including any colons. If your programs source files contain more than one create method, youll be presented with a numbered list of classes that implement that method. Indicate your choice by number, or type 0 to exit if none apply. As another example, to clear a breakpoint established at the makeKeyAndOrderFront: method of the NSWindow class, enter:
clear -[NSWindow makeKeyAndOrderFront:]

[Link] The Print Command With Objective-C

The print command has also been extended to accept methods. For example:
print -[object hash]

will tell gdb to send the hash message to object and print the result. Also, an additional command has been added, print-object or po for short, which is meant to print the description of an object. However, this command may only work with certain Objective-C libraries that have a particular hook function, _NSPrintForDebugger, defined.

15.4.4 OpenCL C
This section provides information about gdbs OpenCL C support.

[Link] OpenCL C Datatypes

gdb supports the builtin scalar and vector datatypes specified by OpenCL 1.1. In addition the half- and double-precision floating point data types of the cl_khr_fp16 and cl_khr_ fp64 OpenCL extensions are also known to gdb.

Chapter 15: Using gdb with Different Languages

173

[Link] OpenCL C Expressions

gdb supports accesses to vector components including the access as lvalue where possible. Since OpenCL C is based on C99 most C expressions supported by gdb can be used as well.

[Link] OpenCL C Operators

gdb supports the operators specified by OpenCL 1.1 for scalar and vector data types.

15.4.5 Fortran
gdb can be used to debug programs written in Fortran, but it currently supports only the features of Fortran 77 language. Some Fortran compilers (gnu Fortran 77 and Fortran 95 compilers among them) append an underscore to the names of variables and functions. When you debug programs compiled by those compilers, you will need to refer to variables and functions with a trailing underscore.

[Link] Fortran Operators and Expressions

Operators must be defined on values of specific types. For instance, + is defined on numbers, but not on characters or other non- arithmetic types. Operators are often defined on groups of types. ** : % The exponentiation operator. It raises the first operand to the power of the second one. The range operator. Normally used in the form of array(low:high) to represent a section of array. The access component operator. Normally used to access elements in derived types. Also suitable for unions. As unions arent part of regular Fortran, this can only happen when accessing a register that uses a gdbarch-defined union type.

[Link] Fortran Defaults

Fortran symbols are usually case-insensitive, so gdb by default uses case-insensitive matches for Fortran symbols. You can change that with the set case-insensitive command, see Chapter 16 [Symbols], page 189, for the details.

[Link] Special Fortran Commands

gdb has some commands to support Fortran-specific features, such as displaying common blocks. info common [common-name] This command prints the values contained in the Fortran COMMON block whose name is common-name. With no argument, the names of all COMMON blocks visible at the current program location are printed.

174

Debugging with gdb

15.4.6 Pascal
Debugging Pascal programs which use sets, subranges, file variables, or nested functions does not currently work. gdb does not support entering expressions, printing values, or similar features using Pascal syntax. The Pascal-specific command set print pascal_static-members controls whether static members of Pascal objects are displayed. See Section 10.8 [Print Settings], page 106.

15.4.7 Modula-2
The extensions made to gdb to support Modula-2 only support output from the gnu Modula-2 compiler (which is currently being developed). Other Modula-2 compilers are not currently supported, and attempting to debug executables produced by them is most likely to give an error as gdb reads in the executables symbol table.

[Link] Operators
Operators must be defined on values of specific types. For instance, + is defined on numbers, but not on structures. Operators are often defined on groups of types. For the purposes of Modula-2, the following definitions hold: Integral types consist of INTEGER, CARDINAL, and their subranges. Character types consist of CHAR and its subranges. Floating-point types consist of REAL. Pointer types consist of anything declared as POINTER TO type. Scalar types consist of all of the above. Set types consist of SET and BITSET types. Boolean types consist of BOOLEAN. The following operators are supported, and appear in order of increasing precedence: , := <, > <=, >= =, <>, # Function argument or array index separator. Assignment. The value of var := value is value. Less than, greater than on integral, floating-point, or enumerated types. Less than or equal to, greater than or equal to on integral, floating-point and enumerated types, or set inclusion on set types. Same precedence as <. Equality and two ways of expressing inequality, valid on scalar types. Same precedence as <. In gdb scripts, only <> is available for inequality, since # conflicts with the script comment character. Set membership. Defined on set types and the types of their members. Same precedence as <. Boolean disjunction. Defined on boolean types. Boolean conjunction. Defined on boolean types. The gdb artificial array operator (see Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97). Addition and subtraction on integral and floating-point types, or union and difference on set types.

IN OR AND, & @ +, -

Chapter 15: Using gdb with Different Languages

175

* / DIV, MOD ^ NOT . [] () ::, .

Multiplication on integral and floating-point types, or set intersection on set types. Division on floating-point types, or symmetric set difference on set types. Same precedence as *. Integer division and remainder. Defined on integral types. Same precedence as *. Negative. Defined on INTEGER and REAL data. Pointer dereferencing. Defined on pointer types. Boolean negation. Defined on boolean types. Same precedence as ^. RECORD field selector. Defined on RECORD data. Same precedence as ^. Array indexing. Defined on ARRAY data. Same precedence as ^. Procedure argument list. Defined on PROCEDURE objects. Same precedence as ^. gdb and Modula-2 scope operators. Warning: Set expressions and their operations are not yet supported, so gdb treats the use of the operator IN, or the use of operators +, -, *, /, =, , <>, #, <=, and >= on sets as an error.

[Link] Built-in Functions and Procedures

Modula-2 also makes available several built-in procedures and functions. In describing these, the following metavariables are used: a c i m represents an ARRAY variable. represents a CHAR constant or variable. represents a variable or constant of integral type. represents an identifier that belongs to a set. Generally used in the same function with the metavariable s. The type of s should be SET OF mtype (where mtype is the type of m). represents a variable or constant of integral or floating-point type. represents a variable or constant of floating-point type. represents a type. represents a variable. represents a variable or constant of one of many types. See the explanation of the function for details. All Modula-2 built-in procedures also return a result, described below. ABS(n) CAP(c) Returns the absolute value of n. If c is a lower case letter, it returns its upper case equivalent, otherwise it returns its argument.

n r t v x

176

Debugging with gdb

CHR(i) DEC(v) DEC(v,i) EXCL(m,s)

Returns the character whose ordinal value is i. Decrements the value in the variable v by one. Returns the new value. Decrements the value in the variable v by i. Returns the new value. Removes the element m from the set s. Returns the new set.

FLOAT(i) HIGH(a) INC(v) INC(v,i) INCL(m,s)

Returns the floating point equivalent of the integer i. Returns the index of the last member of a. Increments the value in the variable v by one. Returns the new value. Increments the value in the variable v by i. Returns the new value. Adds the element m to the set s if it is not already there. Returns the new set.

MAX(t) MIN(t) ODD(i) ORD(x)

Returns the maximum value of the type t. Returns the minimum value of the type t. Returns boolean TRUE if i is an odd number. Returns the ordinal value of its argument. For example, the ordinal value of a character is its ascii value (on machines supporting the ascii character set). x must be of an ordered type, which include integral, character and enumerated types. Returns the size of its argument. x can be a variable or a type. Returns the integral part of r. Returns the size of its argument. x can be a variable or a type. Returns the member of the type t whose ordinal value is i.

SIZE(x) TRUNC(r) TSIZE(x) VAL(t,i)

Warning: Sets and their operations are not yet supported, so gdb treats the use of procedures INCL and EXCL as an error.

[Link] Constants
gdb allows you to express the constants of Modula-2 in the following ways: Integer constants are simply a sequence of digits. When used in an expression, a constant is interpreted to be type-compatible with the rest of the expression. Hexadecimal integers are specified by a trailing H, and octal integers by a trailing B. Floating point constants appear as a sequence of digits, followed by a decimal point and another sequence of digits. An optional exponent can then be specified, in the form E[+|-]nnn, where [+|-]nnn is the desired exponent. All of the digits of the floating point constant must be valid decimal (base 10) digits. Character constants consist of a single character enclosed by a pair of like quotes, either single () or double ("). They may also be expressed by their ordinal value (their ascii value, usually) followed by a C.

Chapter 15: Using gdb with Different Languages

177

String constants consist of a sequence of characters enclosed by a pair of like quotes, either single () or double ("). Escape sequences in the style of C are also allowed. See Section [Link] [C and C++ Constants], page 167, for a brief explanation of escape sequences. Enumerated constants consist of an enumerated identifier. Boolean constants consist of the identifiers TRUE and FALSE. Pointer constants consist of integral values only. Set constants are not yet supported.

[Link] Modula-2 Types

Currently gdb can print the following data types in Modula-2 syntax: array types, record types, set types, pointer types, procedure types, enumerated types, subrange types and base types. You can also print the contents of variables declared using these type. This section gives a number of simple source code examples together with sample gdb sessions. The first example contains the following section of code:
VAR s: SET OF CHAR ; r: [20..40] ;

and you can request gdb to interrogate the type and value of r and s.
(gdb) print s {A..C, Z} (gdb) ptype s SET OF CHAR (gdb) print r 21 (gdb) ptype r [20..40]

Likewise if your source code declares s as:

VAR s: SET [A..Z] ;

then you may query the type of s by:

(gdb) ptype s type = SET [A..Z]

Note that at present you cannot interactively manipulate set expressions using the debugger. The following example shows how you might declare an array in Modula-2 and how you can interact with gdb to print its type and contents:
VAR s: ARRAY [-10..10] OF CHAR ; (gdb) ptype s ARRAY [-10..10] OF CHAR

Note that the array handling is not yet complete and although the type is printed correctly, expression handling still assumes that all arrays have a lower bound of zero and not -10 as in the example above. Here are some more type related Modula-2 examples:
TYPE colour = (blue, red, yellow, green) ; t = [blue..yellow] ;

178

Debugging with gdb

VAR s: t ; BEGIN s := blue ;

The gdb interaction shows how you can query the data type and value of a variable.
(gdb) print s $1 = blue (gdb) ptype t type = [blue..yellow]

In this example a Modula-2 array is declared and its contents displayed. Observe that the contents are written in the same way as their C counterparts.
VAR s: ARRAY [1..5] OF CARDINAL ; BEGIN s[1] := 1 ; (gdb) print s $1 = {1, 0, 0, 0, 0} (gdb) ptype s type = ARRAY [1..5] OF CARDINAL

The Modula-2 language interface to gdb also understands pointer types as shown in this example:
VAR s: POINTER TO ARRAY [1..5] OF CARDINAL ; BEGIN NEW(s) ; s^[1] := 1 ;

and you can request that gdb describes the type of s.

(gdb) ptype s type = POINTER TO ARRAY [1..5] OF CARDINAL

gdb handles compound types as we can see in this example. Here we combine array types, record types, pointer types and subrange types:
TYPE foo = RECORD f1: CARDINAL ; f2: CHAR ; f3: myarray ; END ; myarray = ARRAY myrange OF CARDINAL ; myrange = [-2..2] ; VAR s: POINTER TO ARRAY myrange OF foo ;

and you can ask gdb to describe the type of s as shown below.
(gdb) ptype s type = POINTER TO ARRAY [-2..2] OF foo = RECORD f1 : CARDINAL; f2 : CHAR; f3 : ARRAY [-2..2] OF CARDINAL; END

Chapter 15: Using gdb with Different Languages

179

[Link] Modula-2 Defaults

If type and range checking are set automatically by gdb, they both default to on whenever the working language changes to Modula-2. This happens regardless of whether you or gdb selected the working language. If you allow gdb to set the language automatically, then entering code compiled from a file whose name ends with .mod sets the working language to Modula-2. See Section 15.1.3 [Having gdb Infer the Source Language], page 162, for further details.

[Link] Deviations from Standard Modula-2

A few changes have been made to make Modula-2 programs easier to debug. This is done primarily via loosening its type strictness: Unlike in standard Modula-2, pointer constants can be formed by integers. This allows you to modify pointer variables during debugging. (In standard Modula-2, the actual address contained in a pointer variable is hidden from you; it can only be modified through direct assignment to another pointer variable or expression that returned a pointer.) C escape sequences can be used in strings and characters to represent non-printable characters. gdb prints out strings with these escape sequences embedded. Single nonprintable characters are printed using the CHR(nnn) format. The assignment operator (:=) returns the value of its right-hand argument. All built-in procedures both modify and return their argument.

[Link] Modula-2 Type and Range Checks

Warning: in this release, gdb does not yet perform type or range checking. gdb considers two Modula-2 variables type equivalent if: They are of types that have been declared equivalent via a TYPE t1 = t2 statement They have been declared on the same line. (Note: This is true of the gnu Modula-2 compiler, but it may not be true of other compilers.) As long as type checking is enabled, any attempt to combine variables whose types are not equivalent is an error. Range checking is done on all mathematical operations, assignment, array index bounds, and all built-in functions and procedures.

[Link] The Scope Operators :: and .

There are a few subtle differences between the Modula-2 scope operator (.) and the gdb scope operator (::). The two have similar syntax:
module . id scope :: id

where scope is the name of a module or a procedure, module the name of a module, and id is any declared identifier within your program, except another module. Using the :: operator makes gdb search the scope specified by scope for the identifier id. If it is not found in the specified scope, then gdb searches all scopes enclosing the one specified by scope.

180

Debugging with gdb

Using the . operator makes gdb search the current scope for the identifier specified by id that was imported from the definition module specified by module. With this operator, it is an error if the identifier id was not imported from definition module module, or if id is not an identifier in module.

[Link] gdb and Modula-2

Some gdb commands have little use when debugging Modula-2 programs. Five subcommands of set print and show print apply specifically to C and C++: vtbl, demangle, asm-demangle, object, and union. The first four apply to C++, and the last to the C union type, which has no direct analogue in Modula-2. The @ operator (see Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97), while available with any language, is not useful with Modula-2. Its intent is to aid the debugging of dynamic arrays, which cannot be created in Modula-2 as they can in C or C++. However, because an address can be specified by an integral constant, the construct {type}adrexp is still useful. In gdb scripts, the Modula-2 inequality operator # is interpreted as the beginning of a comment. Use <> instead.

15.4.8 Ada
The extensions made to gdb for Ada only support output from the gnu Ada (GNAT) compiler. Other Ada compilers are not currently supported, and attempting to debug executables produced by them is most likely to be difficult.

[Link] Introduction
The Ada mode of gdb supports a fairly large subset of Ada expression syntax, with some extensions. The philosophy behind the design of this subset is That gdb should provide basic literals and access to operations for arithmetic, dereferencing, field selection, indexing, and subprogram calls, leaving more sophisticated computations to subprograms written into the program (which therefore may be called from gdb). That type safety and strict adherence to Ada language restrictions are not particularly important to the gdb user. That brevity is important to the gdb user. Thus, for brevity, the debugger acts as if all names declared in user-written packages are directly visible, even if they are not visible according to Ada rules, thus making it unnecessary to fully qualify most names with their packages, regardless of context. Where this causes ambiguity, gdb asks the users intent. The debugger will start in Ada mode if it detects an Ada main program. As for other languages, it will enter Ada mode when stopped in a program that was translated from an Ada source file. While in Ada mode, you may use -- for comments. This is useful mostly for documenting command files. The standard gdb comment (#) still works at the beginning of a line in Ada mode, but not in the middle (to allow based literals). The debugger supports limited overloading. Given a subprogram call in which the function symbol has multiple definitions, it will use the number of actual parameters and some

Chapter 15: Using gdb with Different Languages

181

information about their types to attempt to narrow the set of definitions. It also makes very limited use of context, preferring procedures to functions in the context of the call command, and functions to procedures elsewhere.

[Link] Omissions from Ada

Here are the notable omissions from the subset: Only a subset of the attributes are supported: First, Last, and Length on array objects (not on types and subtypes). Min and Max. Pos and Val. Tag. Range on array objects (not subtypes), but only as the right operand of the membership (in) operator. Access, Unchecked_Access, and Unrestricted_Access (a GNAT extension). Address. The names in Characters.Latin_1 are not available and concatenation is not implemented. Thus, escape characters in strings are not currently available. Equality tests (= and /=) on arrays test for bitwise equality of representations. They will generally work correctly for strings and arrays whose elements have integer or enumeration types. They may not work correctly for arrays whose element types have user-defined equality, for arrays of real values (in particular, IEEE-conformant floating point, because of negative zeroes and NaNs), and for arrays whose elements contain unused bits with indeterminate values. The other component-by-component array operations (and, or, xor, not, and relational tests other than equality) are not implemented. There is limited support for array and record aggregates. They are permitted only on the right sides of assignments, as in these examples:
(gdb) (gdb) (gdb) (gdb) (gdb) (gdb) set set set set set set An_Array := (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) An_Array := (1, others => 0) An_Array := (0|4 => 1, 1..3 => 2, 5 => 6) A_2D_Array := ((1, 2, 3), (4, 5, 6), (7, 8, 9)) A_Record := (1, "Peter", True); A_Record := (Name => "Peter", Id => 1, Alive => True)

Changing a discriminants value by assigning an aggregate has an undefined effect if that discriminant is used within the record. However, you can first modify discriminants by directly assigning to them (which normally would not be allowed in Ada), and then performing an aggregate assignment. For example, given a variable A_Rec declared to have a type such as:
type Rec (Len : Small_Integer := 0) is record Id : Integer; Vals : IntArray (1 .. Len); end record;

you can assign a value with a different size of Vals with two assignments:
(gdb) set A_Rec.Len := 4 (gdb) set A_Rec := (Id => 42, Vals => (1, 2, 3, 4))

182

Debugging with gdb

As this example also illustrates, gdb is very loose about the usual rules concerning aggregates. You may leave out some of the components of an array or record aggregate (such as the Len component in the assignment to A_Rec above); they will retain their original values upon assignment. You may freely use dynamic values as indices in component associations. You may even use overlapping or redundant component associations, although which component values are assigned in such cases is not defined. Calls to dispatching subprograms are not implemented. The overloading algorithm is much more limited (i.e., less selective) than that of real Ada. It makes only limited use of the context in which a subexpression appears to resolve its meaning, and it is much looser in its rules for allowing type matches. As a result, some function calls will be ambiguous, and the user will be asked to choose the proper resolution. The new operator is not implemented. Entry calls are not implemented. Aside from printing, arithmetic operations on the native VAX floating-point formats are not supported. It is not possible to slice a packed array. The names True and False, when not part of a qualified name, are interpreted as if implicitly prefixed by Standard, regardless of context. Should your program redefine these names in a package or procedure (at best a dubious practice), you will have to use fully qualified names to access their new definitions.

[Link] Additions to Ada

As it does for other languages, gdb makes certain generic extensions to Ada (see Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97): If the expression E is a variable residing in memory (typically a local variable or array element) and N is a positive integer, then E@N displays the values of E and the N-1 adjacent variables following it in memory as an array. In Ada, this operator is generally not necessary, since its prime use is in displaying parts of an array, and slicing will usually do this in Ada. However, there are occasional uses when debugging programs in which certain debugging information has been optimized away. B::var means the variable named var that appears in function or file B. When B is a file name, you must typically surround it in single quotes. The expression {type} addr means the variable of type type that appears at address addr. A name starting with $ is a convenience variable (see Section 10.11 [Convenience Vars], page 117) or a machine register (see Section 10.12 [Registers], page 119). In addition, gdb provides a few other shortcuts and outright additions specific to Ada: The assignment statement is allowed as an expression, returning its right-hand operand as its value. Thus, you may enter
(gdb) set x := y + 3 (gdb) print A(tmp := y + 1)

The semicolon is allowed as an operator, returning as its value the value of its righthand operand. This allows, for example, complex conditional breaks:

Chapter 15: Using gdb with Different Languages

183

(gdb) break f (gdb) condition 1 (report(i); k += 1; A(k) > 100)

Rather than use catenation and symbolic character names to introduce special characters into strings, one may instead use a special bracket notation, which is also used to print strings. A sequence of characters of the form ["XX"] within a string or character literal denotes the (single) character whose numeric encoding is XX in hexadecimal. The sequence of characters ["""] also denotes a single quotation mark in strings. For example,
"One line.["0a"]Next line.["0a"]"

contains an ASCII newline character ([Link].Latin_1.LF) after each period. The subtype used as a prefix for the attributes Pos, Min, and Max is optional (and is ignored in any case). For example, it is valid to write
(gdb) print max(x, y)

When printing arrays, gdb uses positional notation when the array has a lower bound of 1, and uses a modified named notation otherwise. For example, a one-dimensional array of three integers with a lower bound of 3 might print as
(3 => 10, 17, 1)

That is, in contrast to valid Ada, only the first component has a => clause. You may abbreviate attributes in expressions with any unique, multi-character subsequence of their names (an exact match gets preference). For example, you may use alen, agth, or alh in place of alength. Since Ada is case-insensitive, the debugger normally maps identifiers you type to lower case. The GNAT compiler uses upper-case characters for some of its internal identifiers, which are normally of no interest to users. For the rare occasions when you actually have to look at them, enclose them in angle brackets to avoid the lower-case mapping. For example,
(gdb) print <JMPBUF_SAVE>[0]

Printing an object of class-wide type or dereferencing an access-to-class-wide value will display all the components of the objects specific type (as indicated by its run-time tag). Likewise, component selection on such a value will operate on the specific type of the object.

[Link] Stopping at the Very Beginning

It is sometimes necessary to debug the program during elaboration, and before reaching the main procedure. As defined in the Ada Reference Manual, the elaboration code is invoked from a procedure called adainit. To run your program up to the beginning of elaboration, simply use the following two commands: tbreak adainit and run.

[Link] Extensions for Ada Tasks

Support for Ada tasks is analogous to that for threads (see Section 4.10 [Threads], page 35). gdb provides the following task-related commands: info tasks This command shows a list of current Ada tasks, as in the following example:

184

Debugging with gdb

(gdb) info tasks ID TID P-ID Pri State Name 1 8088000 0 15 Child Activation Wait main_task 2 80a4000 1 15 Accept Statement b 3 809a800 1 15 Child Activation Wait a * 4 80ae800 3 15 Runnable c

In this listing, the asterisk before the last task indicates it to be the task currently being inspected. ID TID P-ID Pri State Represents gdbs internal task number. The Ada task ID. The parents task ID (gdbs internal task number). The base priority of the task. Current state of the task. Unactivated The task has been created but has not been activated. It cannot be executing. Runnable The task is not blocked for any reason known to Ada. (It may be waiting for a mutex, though.) It is conceptually "executing" in normal mode. The task is terminated, in the sense of ARM 9.3 (5). Any dependents that were waiting on terminate alternatives have been awakened and have terminated themselves. Child Activation Wait The task is waiting for created tasks to complete activation. Accept Statement The task is waiting on an accept or selective wait statement. Waiting on entry call The task is waiting on an entry call. Async Select Wait The task is waiting to start the abortable part of an asynchronous select statement. Delay Sleep The task is waiting on a select statement with only a delay alternative open. Child Termination Wait The task is sleeping having completed a master within itself, and is waiting for the tasks dependent on that

Terminated

Chapter 15: Using gdb with Different Languages

185

master to become terminated or waiting on a terminate Phase. Wait Child in Term Alt The task is sleeping waiting for tasks on terminate alternatives to finish terminating. Accepting RV with taskno The task is accepting a rendez-vous with the task taskno. Name Name of the task in the program.

info task taskno This command shows detailled informations on the specified task, as in the following example:
(gdb) info tasks ID TID P-ID Pri State 1 8077880 0 15 Child Activation Wait * 2 807c468 1 15 Runnable (gdb) info task 2 Ada Task: 0x807c468 Name: task_1 Thread: 0x807f378 Parent: 1 (main_task) Base Priority: 15 State: Runnable

Name main_task task_1

task

This command prints the ID of the current task.

(gdb) info tasks ID TID P-ID Pri State 1 8077870 0 15 Child Activation Wait * 2 807c458 1 15 Runnable (gdb) task [Current task is 2]

Name main_task t

task taskno This command is like the thread threadno command (see Section 4.10 [Threads], page 35). It switches the context of debugging from the current task to the given task.
(gdb) info tasks ID TID P-ID Pri State Name 1 8077870 0 15 Child Activation Wait main_task * 2 807c458 1 15 Runnable t (gdb) task 1 [Switching to task 1] #0 0x8067726 in pthread_cond_wait () (gdb) bt #0 0x8067726 in pthread_cond_wait () #1 0x8056714 in system.os_interface.pthread_cond_wait ()

186

Debugging with gdb

#2 #3 #4

0x805cb63 in system.task_primitives.[Link] () 0x806153e in [Link].activate_tasks () 0x804aacc in un () at [Link]

break linespec task taskno break linespec task taskno if ... These commands are like the break ... thread ... command (see Section 5.5 [Thread Stops], page 68). linespec specifies source lines, as described in Section 9.2 [Specify Location], page 88. Use the qualifier task taskno with a breakpoint command to specify that you only want gdb to stop the program when a particular Ada task reaches this breakpoint. taskno is one of the numeric task identifiers assigned by gdb, shown in the first column of the info tasks display. If you do not specify task taskno when you set a breakpoint, the breakpoint applies to all tasks of your program. You can use the task qualifier on conditional breakpoints as well; in this case, place task taskno before the breakpoint condition (before the if). For example,

(gdb) info tasks ID TID P-ID Pri State Name 1 140022020 0 15 Child Activation Wait main_task 2 140045060 1 15 Accept/Select Wait t2 3 140044840 1 15 Runnable t1 * 4 140056040 1 15 Runnable t3 (gdb) b 15 task 2 Breakpoint 5 at 0x120044cb0: file test_task_debug.adb, line 15. (gdb) cont Continuing. task # 1 running task # 2 running Breakpoint 5, test_task_debug () at test_task_debug.adb:15 15 flush; (gdb) info tasks ID TID P-ID Pri State Name 1 140022020 0 15 Child Activation Wait main_task * 2 140045060 1 15 Runnable t2 3 140044840 1 15 Runnable t1 4 140056040 1 15 Delay Sleep t3

[Link] Tasking Support when Debugging Core Files

When inspecting a core file, as opposed to debugging a live program, tasking support may be limited or even unavailable, depending on the platform being used. For instance, on x86-linux, the list of tasks is available, but task switching is not supported. On Tru64, however, task switching will work as usual. On certain platforms, including Tru64, the debugger needs to perform some memory writes in order to provide Ada tasking support. When inspecting a core file, this means that the core file must be opened with read-write privileges, using the command "set

Chapter 15: Using gdb with Different Languages

187

write on" (see Section 17.6 [Patching], page 199). Under these circumstances, you should make a backup copy of the core file before inspecting it with gdb.

[Link] Tasking Support when using the Ravenscar Profile

The Ravenscar Profile is a subset of the Ada tasking features, specifically designed for systems with safety-critical real-time requirements. set ravenscar task-switching on Allows task switching when debugging a program that uses the Ravenscar Profile. This is the default. set ravenscar task-switching off Turn off task switching when debugging a program that uses the Ravenscar Profile. This is mostly intended to disable the code that adds support for the Ravenscar Profile, in case a bug in either gdb or in the Ravenscar runtime is preventing gdb from working properly. To be effective, this command should be run before the program is started. show ravenscar task-switching Show whether it is possible to switch from task to task in a program using the Ravenscar Profile.

[Link] Known Peculiarities of Ada Mode

Besides the omissions listed previously (see Section [Link] [Omissions from Ada], page 181), we know of several problems with and limitations of Ada mode in gdb, some of which will be fixed with planned future releases of the debugger and the GNU Ada compiler. Static constants that the compiler chooses not to materialize as objects in storage are invisible to the debugger. Named parameter associations in function argument lists are ignored (the argument lists are treated as positional). Many useful library packages are currently invisible to the debugger. Fixed-point arithmetic, conversions, input, and output is carried out using floatingpoint arithmetic, and may give results that only approximate those on the host machine. The GNAT compiler never generates the prefix Standard for any of the standard symbols defined by the Ada language. gdb knows about this: it will strip the prefix from names when you use it, and will never look for a name you have so qualified among local symbols, nor match against symbols in other packages or subprograms. If you have defined entities anywhere in your program other than parameters and local variables whose simple names match names in Standard, GNATs lack of qualification here can cause confusion. When this happens, you can usually resolve the confusion by qualifying the problematic names with package Standard explicitly. Older versions of the compiler sometimes generate erroneous debugging information, resulting in the debugger incorrectly printing the value of affected entities. In some cases, the debugger is able to work around an issue automatically. In other cases, the debugger is able to work around the issue, but the work-around has to be specifically enabled.

188

Debugging with gdb

set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS on Configure GDB to strictly follow the GNAT encoding when computing the value of Ada entities, particularly when PAD and PAD___XVS types are involved (see ada/exp_dbug.ads in the GCC sources for a complete description of the encoding used by the GNAT compiler). This is the default. set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS off This is related to the encoding using by the GNAT compiler. If gdb sometimes prints the wrong value for certain entities, changing ada trust-PAD-over-XVS to off activates a work-around which may fix the issue. It is always safe to set ada trust-PAD-over-XVS to off, but this incurs a slight performance penalty, so it is recommended to leave this setting to on unless necessary.

15.5 Unsupported Languages

In addition to the other fully-supported programming languages, gdb also provides a pseudo-language, called minimal. It does not represent a real programming language, but provides a set of capabilities close to what the C or assembly languages provide. This should allow most simple operations to be performed while debugging an application that uses a language currently not supported by gdb. If the language is set to auto, gdb will automatically select this language if the current frame corresponds to an unsupported language.

Chapter 16: Examining the Symbol Table

189

16 Examining the Symbol Table

The commands described in this chapter allow you to inquire about the symbols (names of variables, functions and types) defined in your program. This information is inherent in the text of your program and does not change as your program executes. gdb finds it in your programs symbol table, in the file indicated when you started gdb (see Section 2.1.1 [Choosing Files], page 12), or by one of the file-management commands (see Section 18.1 [Commands to Specify Files], page 201). Occasionally, you may need to refer to symbols that contain unusual characters, which gdb ordinarily treats as word delimiters. The most frequent case is in referring to static variables in other source files (see Section 10.3 [Program Variables], page 99). File names are recorded in object files as debugging symbols, but gdb would ordinarily parse a typical file name, like foo.c, as the three words foo . c. To allow gdb to recognize foo.c as a single symbol, enclose it in single quotes; for example,
p foo.c::x

looks up the value of x in the scope of the file foo.c. set case-sensitive on set case-sensitive off set case-sensitive auto Normally, when gdb looks up symbols, it matches their names with case sensitivity determined by the current source language. Occasionally, you may wish to control that. The command set case-sensitive lets you do that by specifying on for case-sensitive matches or off for case-insensitive ones. If you specify auto, case sensitivity is reset to the default suitable for the source language. The default is case-sensitive matches for all languages except for Fortran, for which the default is case-insensitive matches. show case-sensitive This command shows the current setting of case sensitivity for symbols lookups. info address symbol Describe where the data for symbol is stored. For a register variable, this says which register it is kept in. For a non-register local variable, this prints the stack-frame offset at which the variable is always stored. Note the contrast with print &symbol, which does not work at all for a register variable, and for a stack local variable prints the exact address of the current instantiation of the variable. info symbol addr Print the name of a symbol which is stored at the address addr. If no symbol is stored exactly at addr, gdb prints the nearest symbol and an offset from it:
(gdb) info symbol 0x54320 _initialize_vx + 396 in section .text

This is the opposite of the info address command. You can use it to find out the name of a variable or a function given its address. For dynamically linked executables, the name of executable or shared library containing the symbol is also printed:

190

Debugging with gdb

(gdb) info symbol 0x400225 _start + 5 in section .text of /tmp/[Link] (gdb) info symbol 0x2aaaac2811cf __read_nocancel + 6 in section .text of /usr/lib64/[Link].6

whatis [arg] Print the data type of arg, which can be either an expression or a name of a data type. With no argument, print the data type of $, the last value in the value history. If arg is an expression (see Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97), it is not actually evaluated, and any side-effecting operations (such as assignments or function calls) inside it do not take place. If arg is a variable or an expression, whatis prints its literal type as it is used in the source code. If the type was defined using a typedef, whatis will not print the data type underlying the typedef. If the type of the variable or the expression is a compound data type, such as struct or class, whatis never prints their fields or methods. It just prints the struct/class name (a.k.a. its tag). If you want to see the members of such a compound data type, use ptype. If arg is a type name that was defined using typedef, whatis unrolls only one level of that typedef. Unrolling means that whatis will show the underlying type used in the typedef declaration of arg. However, if that underlying type is also a typedef, whatis will not unroll it. For C code, the type names may also have the form class class-name, struct struct-tag, union union-tag or enum enum-tag. ptype [arg] ptype accepts the same arguments as whatis, but prints a detailed description of the type, instead of just the name of the type. See Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97. Contrary to whatis, ptype always unrolls any typedefs in its argument declaration, whether the argument is a variable, expression, or a data type. This means that ptype of a variable or an expression will not print literally its type as present in the source codeuse whatis for that. typedefs at the pointer or reference targets are also unrolled. Only typedefs of fields, methods and inner class typedefs of structs, classes and unions are not unrolled even with ptype. For example, for this variable declaration:
typedef double real_t; struct complex { real_t real; double imag; }; typedef struct complex complex_t; complex_t var; real_t *real_pointer_var;

the two commands give this output:

Chapter 16: Examining the Symbol Table

191

(gdb) whatis var type = complex_t (gdb) ptype var type = struct complex { real_t real; double imag; } (gdb) whatis complex_t type = struct complex (gdb) whatis struct complex type = struct complex (gdb) ptype struct complex type = struct complex { real_t real; double imag; } (gdb) whatis real_pointer_var type = real_t * (gdb) ptype real_pointer_var type = double *

As with whatis, using ptype without an argument refers to the type of $, the last value in the value history. Sometimes, programs use opaque data types or incomplete specifications of complex data structure. If the debug information included in the program does not allow gdb to display a full declaration of the data type, it will say <incomplete type>. For example, given these declarations:
struct foo; struct foo *fooptr;

but no definition for struct foo itself, gdb will say:

(gdb) ptype foo $1 = <incomplete type>

Incomplete type is C terminology for data types that are not completely specified. info types regexp info types Print a brief description of all types whose names match the regular expression regexp (or all types in your program, if you supply no argument). Each complete typename is matched as though it were a complete line; thus, i type value gives information on all types in your program whose names include the string value, but i type ^value$ gives information only on types whose complete name is value. This command differs from ptype in two ways: first, like whatis, it does not print a detailed description; second, it lists all source files where a type is defined. info scope location List all the variables local to a particular scope. This command accepts a location argumenta function name, a source line, or an address preceded by a *, and prints all the variables local to the scope defined by that location. (See Section 9.2 [Specify Location], page 88, for details about supported forms of location.) For example:

192

Debugging with gdb

(gdb) info scope command line handler Scope for command_line_handler: Symbol rl is an argument at stack/frame offset 8, length 4. Symbol linebuffer is in static storage at address 0x150a18, length 4. Symbol linelength is in static storage at address 0x150a1c, length 4. Symbol p is a local variable in register $esi, length 4. Symbol p1 is a local variable in register $ebx, length 4. Symbol nline is a local variable in register $edx, length 4. Symbol repeat is a local variable at frame offset -8, length 4.

This command is especially useful for determining what data to collect during a trace experiment, see Section 13.1.6 [Tracepoint Actions], page 144. info source Show information about the current source filethat is, the source file for the function containing the current point of execution: the name of the source file, and the directory containing it, the directory it was compiled in, its length, in lines, which programming language it is written in, whether the executable includes debugging information for that file, and if so, what format the information is in (e.g., STABS, Dwarf 2, etc.), and whether the debugging information includes information about preprocessor macros. info sources Print the names of all source files in your program for which there is debugging information, organized into two lists: files whose symbols have already been read, and files whose symbols will be read when needed. info functions Print the names and data types of all defined functions. info functions regexp Print the names and data types of all defined functions whose names contain a match for regular expression regexp. Thus, info fun step finds all functions whose names include step; info fun ^step finds those whose names start with step. If a function name contains characters that conflict with the regular expression language (e.g. operator*()), they may be quoted with a backslash. info variables Print the names and data types of all variables that are defined outside of functions (i.e. excluding local variables). info variables regexp Print the names and data types of all variables (except for local variables) whose names contain a match for regular expression regexp. info classes info classes regexp Display all Objective-C classes in your program, or (with the regexp argument) all those matching a particular regular expression.

Chapter 16: Examining the Symbol Table

193

info selectors info selectors regexp Display all Objective-C selectors in your program, or (with the regexp argument) all those matching a particular regular expression. Some systems allow individual object files that make up your program to be replaced without stopping and restarting your program. For example, in VxWorks you can simply recompile a defective object file and keep on running. If you are running on one of these systems, you can allow gdb to reload the symbols for automatically relinked modules: set symbol-reloading on Replace symbol definitions for the corresponding source file when an object file with a particular name is seen again. set symbol-reloading off Do not replace symbol definitions when encountering object files of the same name more than once. This is the default state; if you are not running on a system that permits automatic relinking of modules, you should leave symbol-reloading off, since otherwise gdb may discard symbols when linking large programs, that may contain several modules (from different directories or libraries) with the same name. show symbol-reloading Show the current on or off setting. set opaque-type-resolution on Tell gdb to resolve opaque types. An opaque type is a type declared as a pointer to a struct, class, or unionfor example, struct MyType *that is used in one source file although the full declaration of struct MyType is in another source file. The default is on. A change in the setting of this subcommand will not take effect until the next time symbols for a file are loaded. set opaque-type-resolution off Tell gdb not to resolve opaque types. In this case, the type is printed as follows:
{<no data fields>}

show opaque-type-resolution Show whether opaque types are resolved or not. maint print symbols filename maint print psymbols filename maint print msymbols filename Write a dump of debugging symbol data into the file filename. These commands are used to debug the gdb symbol-reading code. Only symbols with debugging data are included. If you use maint print symbols, gdb includes all the symbols for which it has already collected full details: that is, filename reflects symbols for only those files whose symbols gdb has read. You can use the command info sources to find out which files these are. If you use maint

194

Debugging with gdb

print psymbols instead, the dump shows information about symbols that gdb only knows partiallythat is, symbols defined in files that gdb has skimmed, but not yet read completely. Finally, maint print msymbols dumps just the minimal symbol information required for each object file from which gdb has read some symbols. See Section 18.1 [Commands to Specify Files], page 201, for a discussion of how gdb reads symbols (in the description of symbol-file). maint info symtabs [ regexp ] maint info psymtabs [ regexp ] List the struct symtab or struct partial_symtab structures whose names match regexp. If regexp is not given, list them all. The output includes expressions which you can copy into a gdb debugging this one to examine a particular structure in more detail. For example:
(gdb) maint info psymtabs dwarf2read { objfile /home/gnu/build/gdb/gdb ((struct objfile *) 0x82e69d0) { psymtab /home/gnu/src/gdb/dwarf2read.c ((struct partial_symtab *) 0x8474b10) readin no fullname (null) text addresses 0x814d3c8 -- 0x8158074 globals (* (struct partial_symbol **) 0x8507a08 @ 9) statics (* (struct partial_symbol **) 0x40e95b78 @ 2882) dependencies (none) } } (gdb) maint info symtabs (gdb)

We see that there is one partial symbol table whose filename contains the string dwarf2read, belonging to the gdb executable; and we see that gdb has not read in any symtabs yet at all. If we set a breakpoint on a function, that will cause gdb to read the symtab for the compilation unit containing that function:
(gdb) break dwarf2_psymtab_to_symtab Breakpoint 1 at 0x814e5da: file /home/gnu/src/gdb/dwarf2read.c, line 1574. (gdb) maint info symtabs { objfile /home/gnu/build/gdb/gdb ((struct objfile *) 0x82e69d0) { symtab /home/gnu/src/gdb/dwarf2read.c ((struct symtab *) 0x86c1f38) dirname (null) fullname (null) blockvector ((struct blockvector *) 0x86c1bd0) (primary) linetable ((struct linetable *) 0x8370fa0) debugformat DWARF 2 } } (gdb)

Chapter 17: Altering Execution

195

17 Altering Execution
Once you think you have found an error in your program, you might want to find out for certain whether correcting the apparent error would lead to correct results in the rest of the run. You can find the answer by experiment, using the gdb features for altering execution of the program. For example, you can store new values into variables or memory locations, give your program a signal, restart it at a different address, or even return prematurely from a function.

17.1 Assignment to Variables

To alter the value of a variable, evaluate an assignment expression. See Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97. For example,
print x=4

stores the value 4 into the variable x, and then prints the value of the assignment expression (which is 4). See Chapter 15 [Using gdb with Different Languages], page 161, for more information on operators in supported languages. If you are not interested in seeing the value of the assignment, use the set command instead of the print command. set is really the same as print except that the expressions value is not printed and is not put in the value history (see Section 10.10 [Value History], page 116). The expression is evaluated only for its effects. If the beginning of the argument string of the set command appears identical to a set subcommand, use the set variable command instead of just set. This command is identical to set except for its lack of subcommands. For example, if your program has a variable width, you get an error if you try to set a new value with just set width=13, because gdb has the command set width:
(gdb) whatis width type = double (gdb) p width $4 = 13 (gdb) set width=47 Invalid syntax in expression.

The invalid expression, of course, is =47. In order to actually set the programs variable width, use
(gdb) set var width=47

Because the set command has many subcommands that can conflict with the names of program variables, it is a good idea to use the set variable command instead of just set. For example, if your program has a variable g, you run into problems if you try to set a new value with just set g=4, because gdb has the command set gnutarget, abbreviated set g:

196

Debugging with gdb

(gdb) whatis g type = double (gdb) p g $1 = 1 (gdb) set g=4 (gdb) p g $2 = 1 (gdb) r The program being debugged has been started already. Start it from the beginning? (y or n) y Starting program: /home/smith/cc_progs/[Link] "/home/smith/cc_progs/[Link]": cant open to read symbols: Invalid bfd target. (gdb) show g The current BFD target is "=4".

The program variable g did not change, and you silently set the gnutarget to an invalid value. In order to set the variable g, use
(gdb) set var g=4

gdb allows more implicit conversions in assignments than C; you can freely store an integer value into a pointer variable or vice versa, and you can convert any structure to any other structure that is the same length or shorter. To store values into arbitrary places in memory, use the {...} construct to generate a value of specified type at a specified address (see Section 10.1 [Expressions], page 97). For example, {int}0x83040 refers to memory location 0x83040 as an integer (which implies a certain size and representation in memory), and
set {int}0x83040 = 4

stores the value 4 into that memory location.

17.2 Continuing at a Different Address

Ordinarily, when you continue your program, you do so at the place where it stopped, with the continue command. You can instead continue at an address of your own choosing, with the following commands: jump linespec jump location Resume execution at line linespec or at address given by location. Execution stops again immediately if there is a breakpoint there. See Section 9.2 [Specify Location], page 88, for a description of the different forms of linespec and location. It is common practice to use the tbreak command in conjunction with jump. See Section 5.1.1 [Setting Breakpoints], page 44. The jump command does not change the current stack frame, or the stack pointer, or the contents of any memory location or any register other than the program counter. If line linespec is in a different function from the one currently executing, the results may be bizarre if the two functions expect different patterns of arguments or of local variables. For this reason, the jump command requests confirmation if the specified line is not in the function currently executing. However, even bizarre results are predictable if you are well acquainted with the machine-language code of your program.

Chapter 17: Altering Execution

197

On many systems, you can get much the same effect as the jump command by storing a new value into the register $pc. The difference is that this does not start your program running; it only changes the address of where it will run when you continue. For example,
set $pc = 0x485

makes the next continue command or stepping command execute at address 0x485, rather than at the address where your program stopped. See Section 5.2 [Continuing and Stepping], page 61. The most common occasion to use the jump command is to back upperhaps with more breakpoints setover a portion of a program that has already executed, in order to examine its execution in more detail.

17.3 Giving your Program a Signal

signal signal Resume execution where your program stopped, but immediately give it the signal signal. signal can be the name or the number of a signal. For example, on many systems signal 2 and signal SIGINT are both ways of sending an interrupt signal. Alternatively, if signal is zero, continue execution without giving a signal. This is useful when your program stopped on account of a signal and would ordinary see the signal when resumed with the continue command; signal 0 causes it to resume without a signal. signal does not repeat when you press RET a second time after executing the command. Invoking the signal command is not the same as invoking the kill utility from the shell. Sending a signal with kill causes gdb to decide what to do with the signal depending on the signal handling tables (see Section 5.4 [Signals], page 66). The signal command passes the signal directly to your program.

17.4 Returning from a Function

return return expression You can cancel execution of a function call with the return command. If you give an expression argument, its value is used as the functions return value. When you use return, gdb discards the selected stack frame (and all frames within it). You can think of this as making the discarded frame return prematurely. If you wish to specify a value to be returned, give that value as the argument to return. This pops the selected stack frame (see Section 8.3 [Selecting a Frame], page 84), and any other frames inside of it, leaving its caller as the innermost remaining frame. That frame becomes selected. The specified value is stored in the registers used for returning values of functions. The return command does not resume execution; it leaves the program stopped in the state that would exist if the function had just returned. In contrast, the finish command

198

Debugging with gdb

(see Se