This file describes GDB, the GNU symbolic debugger.
This is the Ninth Edition, for GDB Version 6.1.
Copyright (C) 1988-2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
The purpose of a debugger such as GDB is to allow you to see what is going on "inside" another program while it executes--or 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:
You can use GDB to debug programs written in C and C++. For more information, see Supported languages. For more information, see C and C++.
Support for Modula-2 is partial. For information on Modula-2, see Modula-2.
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.
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.
The biggest deficiency in the free software community today is not in the software--it 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 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 terms--no copying, no modification, source files not available--which exclude them from the free software world.
That wasn't 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 copies--that 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 too--so 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 author's 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 don't obstruct the community's 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 approval--you don't 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 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 you're not sure whether a proposed license is free, write to licensing@gnu.org.
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
<http://www.fsf.org/doc/other-free-books.html>.
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 6.1, 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 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 PA-RISC 2.0 architecture, HP-UX 10.20, 10.30, and 11.0 (narrow mode), HP's implementation of kernel threads, HP's 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.
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.
Jim Blandy added support for preprocessor macros, while working for Red Hat.
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.
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 C-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 6.1, 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:
(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 set_quotes((argc >= 2) ? TOKEN_DATA_TEXT(argv[1])\ : nil,
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);
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 expression--and 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
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:
C-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
This chapter discusses how to start GDB, and how to get out of it. The essentials are:
gdb to start 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.cThis will cause
gdb to debug gcc, and to set
gcc's command-line arguments (see Arguments) to -O2 -c foo.c.
You can run gdb without printing the front material, which describes
GDB's 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.
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 ./, eg. ./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
-exec file
-e file
-se file
-core file
-c file
-c number
-pid number
-p number
attach command.
If there is no such process, GDB will attempt to open a core
file named number.
-command file
-x file
-directory directory
-d directory
-m
-mapped
mmap
system call, you can use this option
to have GDB write the symbols from your
program into a reusable file in the current directory. If the program you are debugging is
called /tmp/fred, the mapped symbol file is /tmp/fred.syms.
Future GDB debugging sessions notice the presence of this file,
and can quickly map in symbol information from it, rather than reading
the symbol table from the executable program.
The .syms file is specific to the host machine where GDB
is run. It holds an exact image of the internal GDB symbol
table. It cannot be shared across multiple host platforms.
-r
-readnow
You typically combine the -mapped and -readnow options in
order to build a .syms file that contains complete symbol
information. (See Commands to specify files, for information
on .syms files.) A simple GDB invocation to do nothing
but build a .syms file for future use is:
gdb -batch -nx -mapped -readnow programname
You can run GDB in various alternative modes--for example, in batch mode or quiet mode.
-nx
-n
-quiet
-silent
-q
-batch
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 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.
-nowindows
-nw
-windows
-w
-cd directory
-fullname
-f
\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
-annotate level
set annotate level
(see Annotations). 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 superseeded by GDB/MI
(see GDB/MI).
-async
-async does not work fully
yet.)
When the standard input is connected to a terminal device, GDB
uses the asynchronous event loop by default, unless disabled by the
-noasync option.
-noasync
--args
-baud bps
-b bps
-tty device
-t device
-tui
gdbtui. Do not use this option if you run GDB from
Emacs (see Using GDB under GNU Emacs).
-interpreter interp
--interpreter=mi (or --interpreter=mi2) causes
GDB to use the GDB/MI interface (see The GDB/MI Interface) included since GDBN 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
set write on command inside GDB
(see Patching).
-statistics
-version
quit [expression]
q
quit command (abbreviated
q), or type an end-of-file character (usually C-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 C-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 Debugging an already-running process).
If you need to execute occasional shell commands during your
debugging session, there is no need to leave or suspend GDB; you can
just use the shell command.
shell command string
SHELL determines which
shell to run. Otherwise GDB uses the default shell
(/bin/sh on Unix systems, COMMAND.COM 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
make program with the specified
arguments. This is equivalent to shell make make-args.
You may want to save the output of GDB commands to a file. There are several commands to control GDB's logging.
set logging on
set logging off
set logging file file
gdb.txt.
set logging overwrite [on|off]
overwrite if
you want set logging on to overwrite the logfile instead.
set logging redirect [on|off]
redirect if you want output to go only to the log file.
show logging
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).
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.
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 Screen size). 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 Command files).
The C-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.
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:
(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) bubble(int,int) (gdb) b 'bubble(
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(
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 C++ expressions. You can use the command set
overload-resolution off to disable overload resolution;
see GDB features for C++.
You can always ask GDB itself for information on its commands,
using the command help.
help
h
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 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
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
help argument, GDB displays a
short paragraph on how to use that command.
apropos args
apropos args 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
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.
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.
info
i) is for describing the state of your
program. For example, you can list the arguments given to your program
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.
set
set. For example, you can set the GDB prompt to a $-sign with
set prompt $.
show
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.
Here are three miscellaneous show subcommands, all of which are
exceptional in lacking corresponding set commands:
show version
show copying
show warranty
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 program's input and output, debug an already running process, or kill a child process.
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.
Most compilers do not include information about preprocessor macros in
the debugging information if you specify the -g flag alone,
because this information is rather large. Version 3.1 of GCC,
the GNU C compiler, provides macro information if you specify the
options -gdwarf-2 and -g3; the former option requests
debugging information in the Dwarf 2 format, and the latter requests
"extra information". In the future, we hope to find more compact ways
to represent macro information, so that it can be included with
-g alone.
Many C 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 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.
When you debug a program compiled with -g -O, remember that the
optimizer is rearranging 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
variable--because 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!).
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.
run
r
run command to start your program under GDB.
You must first specify the program name (except on VxWorks) with an
argument to GDB (see Getting In and Out of GDB), or by using the file or exec-file command
(see Commands to specify files).
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 environments without processes,
run jumps to the start of your program.)
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:
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 Your program's arguments.
set environment and unset
environment to change parts of the environment that affect
your program. See Your program's environment.
cd command in GDB.
See Your program's working directory.
run command line, or you can use the tty command to
set a different device for your program.
See Your program's input and output.
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.
When you issue the run command, your program begins to execute
immediately. See Stopping and continuing, 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 Examining Data.
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.
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 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
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
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
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
PATH
environment variable).
show environment [varname]
environment as env.
set environment varname [=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
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 file--such 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.
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 Commands to specify files.
cd directory
pwd
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
You can redirect your program's 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 command's
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.
attach process-id
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 Specifying source directories). You can also use
the file command to load the program. See Commands to Specify Files.
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 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
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 or use the run command while you have an
attached process, 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 Optional warnings and messages).
kill
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).
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 processes--except 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:
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
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 frominfo threads, and always rejects thethreadcommand, 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 runs--but 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.
Whenever GDB detects a new thread in your program, it displays
the target system's 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
LynxOS, you might see
[New process 35 thread 27]
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 number--always a single integer--with each thread in your program.
info threads
An asterisk * to the left of the GDB thread number
indicates the current thread.
For example,
(gdb) info threads
3 process 35 thread 27 0x34e5 in sigpause ()
2 process 35 thread 23 0x34e5 in sigpause ()
* 1 process 35 thread 13 main (argc=1, argv=0x7ffffff8)
at threadtest.c:68
On HP-UX systems:
For debugging purposes, GDB associates its own thread number--a small integer assigned in thread-creation order--with each thread in your program.
Whenever GDB detects a new thread in your program, it displays
both GDB's thread number and the target system's 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
HP-UX, you see
[New thread 2 (system thread 26594)]
when GDB notices a new thread.
info threads
An asterisk * to the left of the GDB thread number
indicates the current thread.
For example,
(gdb) info threads
* 3 system thread 26607 worker (wptr=0x7b09c318 "@") \
at quicksort.c:137
2 system thread 26606 0x7b0030d8 in __ksleep () \
from /usr/lib/libc.2
1 system thread 27905 0x7b003498 in _brk () \
from /usr/lib/libc.2
thread threadno
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 process 35 thread 23] 0x34e5 in sigpause ()
As with the [New ...] message, the form of the text after
Switching to depends on your system's conventions for identifying
threads.
thread apply [threadno] [all] args
thread apply command allows you to apply a command to one or
more threads. Specify the numbers of the threads that you want affected
with the command argument threadno. threadno is the internal
GDB thread number, as shown in the first field of the info
threads display. To apply a command to all threads, use
thread apply all args.
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 of the form [Switching to systag] to identify the
thread.
See Stopping and starting multi-thread programs, for more information about how GDB behaves when you stop and start programs with multiple threads.
See Setting watchpoints, for information about watchpoints in programs with multiple threads.
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 isn't 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 don't 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 Attach). 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.
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
fork or
vfork. A call to fork or vfork creates a new
process. The mode can be:
parent
child
show follow-fork-mode
fork or vfork call.
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 process's main.
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.
You can use the catch command to make GDB stop whenever
a fork, vfork, or exec call is made. See Setting catchpoints.
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 program--but you can also
explicitly request this information at any time.
info program
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 Setting breakpoints), to specify the place where your program
should stop by line number, function name or exact address in the
program.
In HP-UX, SunOS 4.x, SVR4, and Alpha OSF/1 configurations, 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. You must use a different command to set watchpoints (see Setting watchpoints), 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 Automatic display.
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 Setting catchpoints), 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 Signals.)
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.
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 breakpoint in that range are operated on.
Breakpoints are set with the break command (abbreviated
b). The debugger convenience variable $bpnum records the
number of the breakpoint you've set most recently; see Convenience variables, for a discussion of what you can do with
convenience variables.
You have several ways to say where the breakpoint should go.
break function
break +offset
break -offset
break linenum
break filename:linenum
break filename:function
break *address
break
break sets a breakpoint at
the next instruction to be executed in the selected stack frame
(see Examining the Stack). 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 frame--except
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
... stands for one of the possible arguments described
above (or no argument) specifying where to break. See Break conditions, for more information on breakpoint conditions.
tbreak args
break command, and the breakpoint is set in the same
way, but the breakpoint is automatically deleted after the first time your
program stops there. See Disabling breakpoints.
hbreak args
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 some 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 Disabling). See Break conditions.
See set remote hardware-breakpoint-limit.
thbreak args
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 Disabling breakpoints.
See also Break conditions.
rbreak regex
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.
info breakpoints [n]
info break [n]
info watchpoints [n]
y. n marks breakpoints
that are not enabled.
<PENDING>.
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 Examining memory).
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 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.
If a specified breakpoint location cannot be found, it may be due to the fact that the location is in a shared library that is yet to be loaded. In such a case, you may want GDB to create a special breakpoint (known as a pending breakpoint) that attempts to resolve itself in the future when an appropriate shared library gets loaded.
Pending breakpoints are useful to set at the start of your GDB session for locations that you know will be dynamically loaded later by the program being debugged. When shared libraries are loaded, a check is made to see if the load resolves any pending breakpoint locations. If a pending breakpoint location gets resolved, a regular breakpoint is created and the original pending breakpoint is removed. GDB provides some additional commands for controlling pending breakpoint support:
set breakpoint pending auto
set breakpoint pending on
set breakpoint pending off
show breakpoint pending
Normal breakpoint operations apply to pending breakpoints as well. You may
specify a condition for a pending breakpoint and/or commands to run when the
breakpoint is reached. You can also enable or disable
the pending breakpoint. When you specify a condition for a pending breakpoint,
the parsing of the condition will be deferred until the point where the
pending breakpoint location is resolved. Disabling a pending breakpoint
tells GDB to not attempt to resolve the breakpoint on any subsequent
shared library load. When a pending breakpoint is re-enabled,
GDB checks to see if the location is already resolved.
This is done because any number of shared library loads could have
occurred since the time the breakpoint was disabled and one or more
of these loads could resolve the location.
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).
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.
Depending on your system, watchpoints may be implemented in software or hardware. GDB does software watchpointing by single-stepping your program and testing the variable's 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.)
On some systems, such as HP-UX, GNU/Linux and some other x86-based targets, GDB includes support for hardware watchpoints, which do not slow down the running of your program.
watch expr
rwatch expr
awatch expr
info watchpoints
info break.
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 don't 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.
The SPARClite DSU will generate traps when a program accesses some data
or instruction address that is assigned to the debug registers. For the
data addresses, DSU facilitates the watch command. However the
hardware breakpoint registers can only take two data watchpoints, and
both watchpoints must be the same kind. For example, you can set two
watchpoints with watch commands, two with rwatch commands,
or two with awatch commands, but you cannot set one
watchpoint with one command and the other with a different command.
GDB will reject the command if you try to mix watchpoints.
Delete or disable unused watchpoint commands before setting new ones.
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.
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.
Warning: In multi-thread programs, watchpoints have only limited usefulness. With the current watchpoint implementation, GDB 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 thread's activity (and if you are also confident that no other thread can become current), then you can use watchpoints as usual. However, GDB may not notice when a non-current thread's activity changes the expression.HP-UX Warning: In multi-thread 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 thread's 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 thread's activity changes the expression. (Hardware watchpoints, in contrast, watch an expression in all threads.)
See set remote hardware-watchpoint-limit.
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
throw
catch
exec
exec. This is currently only available for HP-UX.
fork
fork. This is currently only available for HP-UX.
vfork
vfork. This is currently only available for HP-UX.
load
load libname
unload
unload libname
tcatch event
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:
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 Breakpoints; watchpoints; and exceptions).
With a conditional breakpoint (see Break conditions) 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.
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.
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
clear function
clear filename:function
clear linenum
clear filename:linenum
delete [breakpoints] [range...]
set
confirm off). You can abbreviate this command as d.
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 or
info watch to print a list of breakpoints, watchpoints, and
catchpoints if you do not know which numbers to use.
A breakpoint, watchpoint, or catchpoint can have any of four different states of enablement:
break command starts out in this state.
tbreak command starts out in this state.
You can use the following commands to enable or disable breakpoints, watchpoints, and catchpoints:
disable [breakpoints] [range...]
disable as dis.
enable [breakpoints] [range...]
enable [breakpoints] once range...
enable [breakpoints] delete range...
Except for a breakpoint set with tbreak (see Setting breakpoints), 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 Continuing and stepping.)
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 Expressions). 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 violated--that 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 anyhow--but 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 break conditions for the purpose of performing side effects when a breakpoint is reached (see Breakpoint command lists).
Break conditions can be specified when a breakpoint is set, by using
if in the arguments to the break command. See Setting breakpoints. 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
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 Expressions.
condition bnum
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
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 Continuing and stepping.
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 Convenience variables.
Ignore counts apply to breakpoints, watchpoints, and catchpoints.
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 [bnum]
... command-list ...
end
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 bnum argument, commands refers to the last
breakpoint, watchpoint, or catchpoint set (not to the breakpoint most
recently encountered).
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 breakpoint--which 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 Commands for controlled output.
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 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
Some programming languages (notably C++ and Objective-C) permit a
single function name
to be defined several times, for application in different contexts.
This is called overloading. When a function name is overloaded,
break function is not enough to tell GDB where you want
a breakpoint. If you realize this is a problem, you can use
something like break function(types) to specify which
particular version of the function you want. Otherwise, GDB offers
you a menu of numbered choices for different possible breakpoints, and
waits for your selection with the prompt >. The first two
options are always [0] cancel and [1] all. Typing 1
sets a breakpoint at each definition of function, and typing
0 aborts the break command without setting any new
breakpoints.
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:String.cc; line number:867 [3] file:String.cc; line number:860 [4] file:String.cc; line number:875 [5] file:String.cc; line number:853 [6] file:String.cc; line number:846 [7] file:String.cc; line number:735 > 2 4 6 Breakpoint 1 at 0xb26c: file String.cc, line 867. Breakpoint 2 at 0xb344: file String.cc, line 875. Breakpoint 3 at 0xafcc: file String.cc, line 846. Multiple breakpoints were set. Use the "delete" command to delete unwanted breakpoints. (gdb)
Under some operating systems, breakpoints cannot be used in a program if
any other process is running that program. In this situation,
attempting to run or continue a program with a breakpoint causes
GDB to print an error message:
Cannot insert breakpoints. The same program may be running in another process.
When this happens, you have three ways to proceed:
exec-file command to specify
that GDB should run your program under that name.
Then start your program again.
-N. The operating system limitation may not apply
to nonsharable executables.
A similar message can be printed if you request too many active
hardware-assisted breakpoints and watchpoints:
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 hardware-assisted breakpoints and watchpoints, and then continue.
Some processor architectures place constraints on the addresses at which breakpoints may be placed. For architectures thus constrained, GDB will attempt to adjust the breakpoint's 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 breakpoint's 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 breakpoint's address will be adjusted from one source statement to another. Since this adjustment may significantly alter GDB's 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
that's been subject to address adjustment:
warning: Breakpoint address adjusted from 0x00010414 to 0x00010410.
Such warnings are printed both for user settable and GDB's
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.
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 Signals.)
continue [ignore-count]
c [ignore-count]
fg [ignore-count]
ignore (see Break conditions).
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 Returning from a function) to go back to the
calling function; or jump (see Continuing at a different address) to go to an arbitrary location in your program.
A typical technique for using stepping is to set a breakpoint (see Breakpoints; watchpoints; and catchpoints) 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 that breakpoint, and then step through the suspect area, examining the variables that are interesting, until you see the problem happen.
step
s.
Warning: If you use thestepcommand 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 thestepicommand, 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
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]
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
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.
set step-mode off
step command to step over any functions which contains no
debug information. This is the default.
finish
Contrast this with the return command (see Returning from a function).
until
u
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) {
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
statement--not 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
break (see Setting breakpoints). This form of the command uses 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
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 factorial (int value)
95 {
96 if (value > 1) {
97 value *= factorial (value - 1);
98 }
99 return (value);
100 }
advance location
break
command. 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 doesn't
have to be in the same frame as the current one.
stepi
stepi arg
si
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 Automatic display.
An argument is a repeat count, as in step.
nexti
nexti arg
ni
An argument is a repeat count, as in next.
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 C-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 program's 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
info handle is an alias for info signals.
handle signal keywords...
SIG at the beginning); a list of signal numbers of the form
low-high; or the word all, meaning all the
known signals. The keywords say what change to make.
The keywords allowed by the handle command can be abbreviated.
Their full names are:
nostop
stop
print keyword as well.
print
noprint
nostop keyword as well.
pass
noignore
pass and noignore are synonyms.
nopass
ignore
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 Giving your program a signal.
When your program has multiple threads (see Debugging programs with multiple threads), you can choose whether to set breakpoints on all threads, or on a particular thread.
break linespec thread threadno
break linespec thread threadno if ...
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 the
breakpoint condition, like this:
(gdb) break frik.c:13 thread 28 if bartab > lim
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.
There is an unfortunate side effect. 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);
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.
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 target's 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.
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.
On some OSes, you can lock the OS scheduler and thus allow only a single thread to run.
set scheduler-locking mode
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 stops other threads from
"seizing the prompt" by preempting the current thread while you are
stepping. Other threads will 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, they will never steal the
GDB prompt away from the thread that you are debugging.
show scheduler-locking
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 Selecting a frame.
When your program stops, GDB automatically selects the
currently executing frame and describes it briefly, similar to the
frame command (see Information about a frame).
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 function's 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 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
frame args
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
select-frame command allows you to move from one stack frame
to another without printing the frame. This is the silent version of
frame.
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
You can stop the backtrace at any time by typing the system interrupt
character, normally C-c.
backtrace n
bt n
backtrace -n
bt -n
The names where and info stack (abbreviated info s)
are additional aliases for backtrace.
Each line in the backtrace shows the frame number and the function name.
The program counter value is also shown--unless 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.
Here is an example of a backtrace. It was made with the command
bt 3, so it shows the innermost three frames.
#0 m4_traceon (obs=0x24eb0, argc=1, argv=0x2b8c8)
at builtin.c:993
#1 0x6e38 in expand_macro (sym=0x2b600) at macro.c:242
#2 0x6840 in expand_token (obs=0x0, t=177664, td=0xf7fffb08)
at macro.c:71
(More stack frames follow...)
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.
Most programs have a standard user entry point--a place where system
libraries and startup code transition into user code. For C this is
main. When GDB finds the entry function in a backtrace
it will terminate the backtrace, to avoid tracing into highly
system-specific (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
set backtrace past-main off
show backtrace past-main
set backtrace limit n
set backtrace limit 0
show backtrace limit
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
f n
main.
frame addr
f addr
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
down n
down as do.
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 Printing source lines,
for details.
up-silently n
down-silently n
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.
There are several other commands to print information about the selected stack frame.
frame
f
f. With an
argument, this command is used to select a stack frame.
See Selecting a frame.
info frame
info f
The verbose description is useful when
something has gone wrong that has made the stack format fail to fit
the usual conventions.
info frame addr
info f addr
frame command.
See Selecting a frame.
info args
info locals
info catch
up,
down, or frame commands); then type info catch.
See Setting catchpoints.
If you use GDB through its GNU Emacs interface, you may prefer to use Emacs facilities to view source; see Using GDB under GNU Emacs.
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.
Here are the forms of the list command most commonly used:
list linenum
list function
list
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 Examining the Stack), this prints lines centered around that line.
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
list command display count source lines (unless
the list argument explicitly specifies some other number).
show listsize
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, but the effect is always to specify some source line.
Here is a complete description of the possible arguments for list:
list linespec
list first,last
list ,last
list first,
list +
list -
list
Here are the ways of specifying a single source line--all the kinds of linespec.
number
list command has two linespecs, this refers to
the same source file as the first linespec.
+offset
list command that has
two, this specifies the line offset lines down from the
first linespec.
-offset
filename:number
function
filename:function
*address
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.
Here are the forms of the edit command most commonly used:
edit
edit number
edit function
edit filename:number
edit filename:function
edit *address
You can customize GDB to use any editor you want
2. 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 ...
There are two commands for searching through the current source file for a regular expression.
forward-search regexp
search regexp
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
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.
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. Note that the executable search path is not used for this purpose. Neither is the current working directory, unless it happens to be in the source path.
If GDB cannot find a source file in the source path, and the object program records a directory, GDB tries that directory too. If the source path is empty, and there is no record of the compilation directory, GDB looks in the current directory as a last resort.
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.
directory dirname ...
dir dirname ...
:
(; on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, 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
show directories
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:
directory with no argument to reset the source path to empty.
directory with suitable arguments to reinstall the
directories you want in the source path. You can add all the
directories in one command.
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. 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
list command (see Printing source lines).
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 Examining memory). Also, this address is saved as the value of the
convenience variable $_ (see Convenience variables).
disassemble
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.
Some architectures have more than one commonly-used set of instruction mnemonics or other syntax.
set disassembly-flavor instruction-set
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.
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 Using GDB with Different Languages).
print expr
print /f expr
/f, where
f is a letter specifying the format; see Output formats.
print
print /f
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 Examining memory.
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 Examining the Symbol Table.
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
Compilation.
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 build up an array in
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 Using GDB with Different Languages, 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 Artificial arrays, for more information.
::
:: allows you to specify a variable in terms of the file or
function where it is defined. See Program variables.
{type} addr
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 Selecting a frame); they must be either:
or
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 word--for example,
to print a global value of x defined in f2.c:
(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 function--just 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. For example, GCC, the GNU C/C++ compiler
usually supports the -gstabs+ option. -gstabs+
produces debug info in a format that is superior to formats such as
COFF. You may be able to use DWARF 2 (-gdwarf-2), which is also
an effective form for debug info. See Options for Debugging Your Program or GNU CC.
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 Value history), 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 adjacent--for 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 Convenience variables) 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> ...
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
t stands for "two".
3
a
(gdb) p/a 0x54320 $3 = 0x54320 <_initialize_vx+396>
The command info symbol 0x54320 yields similar results.
See info symbol.
c
f
For example, to print the program counter in hex (see Registers), 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.
You can use the command x (for "examine") to examine memory in
any of several formats, independently of your program's data types.
x/nfu addr
x addr
x
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.
print,
s (null-terminated string), or i (machine instruction).
The default is x (hexadecimal) initially.
The default changes each time you use either x or print.
b
h
w
g
Each time you specify a unit size with x, that size becomes the
default unit the next time you use x. (For the s and
i formats, the unit size is ignored and is normally not written.)
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 Registers) 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. The command disassemble gives an
alternative way of inspecting machine instructions; see Source and machine code.
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.
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.
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 on how elaborate your
format specification is--it uses x if you specify a unit size,
or one of the two formats (i and s) that are only
supported by x; otherwise it uses print.
display expr
display does not repeat if you press <RET> again after using it.
display/fmt expr
display/fmt addr
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 Examining memory.
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 Registers).
undisplay dnums...
delete display dnums...
undisplay does not repeat if you press <RET> after using it.
(Otherwise you would just get the error No display number ....)
disable display dnums...
enable display dnums...
display
info display
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 elsewhere--where
there is no variable last_char--the display is disabled
automatically. The next time your program stops where last_char
is meaningful, you can enable the display expression once again.
These settings are useful for debugging programs in any language:
set print address
set print address on
on. For example, this is what a stack frame display looks like with
set print address on:
(gdb) f
#0 set_quotes (lq=0x34c78 "<<", rq=0x34c88 ">>")
at input.c:530
530 if (lquote != def_lquote)
set print address off
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 machines--whether or not they involve pointer arguments.
show print address
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
set print symbol-filename off
show print symbol-filename
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
show print max-symbolic-offset
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 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/adoes not show the symbol name and filename of the referent, even with the appropriateset printoptions turned on.
Other settings control how different kinds of objects are printed:
set print array
set print array on
set print array off
show print array
set print elements number-of-elements
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
set print null-stop
set print pretty on
$1 = {
next = 0x0,
flags = {
sweet = 1,
sour = 1
},
meat = 0x54 "Pork"
}
set print pretty off
$1 = {next = 0x0, flags = {sweet = 1, sour = 1}, \
meat = 0x54 "Pork"}
This is the default format.
show print pretty
set print sevenbit-strings on
\nnn. This setting is
best if you are working in English (ASCII) and you use the
high-order bit of characters as a marker or "meta" bit.
set print sevenbit-strings off
show print sevenbit-strings
set print union on
set print union off
show print union
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 = {...}}
These settings are of interest when debugging C++ programs:
set print demangle
set print demangle on
show print demangle
set print asm-demangle
set print asm-demangle on
show print asm-demangle
set demangle-style style
auto
gnu
g++) encoding algorithm.
This is the default.
hp
aCC) encoding algorithm.
lucid
lcc) encoding algorithm.
arm
cfront-generated executables. GDB would
require further enhancement to permit that.
show demangle-style
set print object
set print object on
set print object off
show print object
set print static-members
set print static-members on
set print static-members off
show print static-members
set print vtbl
set print vtbl on
vtbl commands do not work on programs compiled with the HP
ANSI C++ compiler (aCC).)
set print vtbl off
show print vtbl
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 value's
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 $$0 is equivalent to $.
For example, suppose you have just printed a pointer to a structure and
want to see the contents of the structure. It suffices to type
p *$
If you have a chain of structures where the component next points
to the next one, you can print the contents of the next one with this:
p *$.next
You can print successive links in the chain by repeating this command--which you can do by just typing <RET>.
Note that the history records values, not expressions. If the value of
x is 4 and you type these commands:
print x set x=5
then the value recorded in the value history by the print command
remains 4 even though the value of x has changed.
show values
p $$9 repeated ten times, except that show
values does not change the history.
show values n
show values +
show values + produces no display.
Pressing <RET> to repeat show values n has exactly the
same effect as show values +.
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 Registers).
(Value history references, in contrast, are numbers preceded
by $. See Value history.)
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.
show convenience
show conv.
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.
$_
$_ is automatically set by the x command to
the last address examined (see Examining memory). 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 $__.
$__
$__ 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.
$_exitcode
$_exitcode is automatically set to the exit code when
the program being debugged terminates.
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.
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
info all-registers
info registers regname ...
$.
$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 pointer4 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, 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.
Normally, register values are relative to the selected stack frame
(see Selecting a frame). 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.
Depending on the configuration, GDB may be able to give you more information about the status of the floating point hardware.
info float
info float is supported on
the ARM and x86 machines.
Depending on the configuration, GDB may be able to give you more information about the status of the vector unit.
info vector
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 system-dependent variety of binary values that tell system libraries important details about the hardware, operating system, and process. Each value's 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.
info auxv
Memory region attributes allow you to describe special handling required by regions of your target's 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.
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...
delete mem nums...
disable mem nums...
enable mem nums...
info mem
y.
Disabled memory regions are marked with n.
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
The acccess size attributes 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
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
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 inferior's
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
The format parameter may be any one of:
binary
ihex
srec
tekhex
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
restore filename [binary] bias start end
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.
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 GDB's
remote protocol (see Remote Debugging) 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 GDB's character set support:
set target-charset charset
set target-charset followed by <TAB><TAB>, GDB will
list the target character sets it supports.
set host-charset 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.
GDB can only use certain character sets as its host character
set. We list the character set names GDB recognizes below, and
indicate which can be host character sets, but if you type
set target-charset followed by <TAB><TAB>, GDB will
list the host character sets it supports.
set charset charset
set charset followed by <TAB><TAB>,
GDB will list the name of the character sets that can be used
for both host and target.
show charset
show host-charset
show target-charset
ASCII
ISO-8859-1
EBCDIC-US
IBM1047
Note that these are all single-byte character sets. More work inside GDB is needed to support multi-byte or variable-width character encodings, like the UTF-8 and UCS-2 encodings of Unicode.
Here is an example of GDB's 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, let's use ASCII as our
initial character set:
(gdb) set charset ASCII (gdb) show charset The current host and target character set is `ASCII'. (gdb)
Let's assume that ASCII is indeed the correct character set for our
host system -- in other words, let's 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:
(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 <TAB><TAB>,
GDB tells us the character sets it supports:
(gdb) set target-charset ASCII EBCDIC-US IBM1047 ISO-8859-1 (gdb) set target-charset
We can select IBM1047 as our target character set, and examine the
program's 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.
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 macro's 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 Compilation.
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 frame's source code line. Otherwise, GDB uses the macros in scope at the current listing location; see List.
At the moment, GDB does not support the ##
token-splicing operator, the # stringification operator, or
variable-arity macros.
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
macro expand-once expression
macro exp1 expression
info macro macro
macro define macro replacement-list
macro define macro(arglist) replacement-list
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
macro define command, described
above; it cannot remove definitions present in the program being
debugged.
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 ("We're 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-2 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)
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 ("We're 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 N's 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 ("We're so creative.\n");
(gdb) info macro N
The symbol `N' has no definition as a C/C++ preprocessor macro
at /home/jimb/gdb/macros/play/sample.c:12
(gdb) next
We're 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 some applications, it is not feasible for the debugger to interrupt the program's execution long enough for the developer to learn anything helpful about its behavior. If the program's 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 program's behavior without interrupting it.
Using GDB's 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 example--whose 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 program's behavior.
The tracepoint facility is currently available only for remote targets. See Targets. 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.
This chapter describes the tracepoint commands and features.
Before running such a trace experiment, an arbitrary number of tracepoints can be set. Like a breakpoint (see Set Breaks), a tracepoint has a number assigned to it by GDB. Like with breakpoints, tracepoint numbers are successive integers starting from one. 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.
This section describes commands to set tracepoints and associated conditions and actions.
trace
trace command is very similar to the break command.
Its argument can be a source line, a function name, or an address in
the target program. See Set Breaks. 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 commands
doesn't take effect until the next tstart command; thus, you
cannot change the tracepoint attributes once a trace experiment is
running.
Here are some examples of using the trace command:
(gdb) trace foo.c:121 // a source file and line number (gdb) trace +2 // 2 lines forward (gdb) trace my_function // 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.
The convenience variable $tpnum records the tracepoint number
of the most recently set tracepoint.
delete tracepoint [num]
Examples:
(gdb) delete trace 1 2 3 // remove three tracepoints (gdb) delete trace // remove all tracepoints
You can abbreviate this command as del tr.
disable tracepoint [num]
enable tracepoint command.
enable tracepoint [num]
passcount [n [num]]
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 // Stop on the 12th execution of the
// most recently defined tracepoint.
(gdb) trace foo (gdb) pass 3 (gdb) trace bar (gdb) pass 2 (gdb) trace baz (gdb) pass 1 // 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.
actions [num]
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 and
while-stepping.
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.
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 while-stepping command is used,
followed by the list of things to be collected while stepping. 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 $fp, $sp > end end
collect expr1, expr2, ...
$regs
$args
$locals
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 command info scope (see info scope) is
particularly useful for figuring out what data to collect.
while-stepping n
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 >
You may abbreviate while-stepping as ws or
stepping.
info tracepoints [num]
passcount n command
while-stepping n command
actions command
(gdb) info trace Num Enb Address PassC StepC What 1 y 0x002117c4 0 0 <gdb_asm> 2 y 0x0020dc64 0 0 in g_test at g_test.c:1375 3 y 0x0020b1f4 0 0 in get_data at ../foo.c:41 (gdb)
This command can be abbreviated info tp.
tstart
tstop
Note: a trace experiment and data collection may stop
automatically if any tracepoint's passcount is reached
(see Tracepoint Passcounts), or if the trace buffer becomes full.
tstatus
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
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.
tfind nThe 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
tfind 0 (since 0 is the number of the first snapshot).
tfind none
tfind end
tfind none.
tfind
tfind -
tfind tracepoint num
tfind pc addr
tfind outside addr1, addr2
tfind range addr1, addr2
tfind line [file:]n
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, $fp
> tfind
> end
Frame 0, PC = 0020DC64, SP = 0030BF3C, FP = 0030BF44
Frame 1, PC = 0020DC6C, SP = 0030BF38, FP = 0030BF44
Frame 2, PC = 0020DC70, SP = 0030BF34, FP = 0030BF44
Frame 3, PC = 0020DC74, SP = 0030BF30, FP = 0030BF44
Frame 4, PC = 0020DC78, SP = 0030BF2C, FP = 0030BF44
Frame 5, PC = 0020DC7C, SP = 0030BF28, FP = 0030BF44
Frame 6, PC = 0020DC80, SP = 0030BF24, FP = 0030BF44
Frame 7, PC = 0020DC84, SP = 0030BF20, FP = 0030BF44
Frame 8, PC = 0020DC88, SP = 0030BF1C, FP = 0030BF44
Frame 9, PC = 0020DC8E, SP = 0030BF18, FP = 0030BF44
Frame 10, PC = 00203F6C, SP = 0030BE3C, FP = 0030BF14
Or, if we want to examine the variable X at each source line in
the buffer:
(gdb) tfind start (gdb) while ($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
tdumpThis 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 p5 = (void *) 0x55 p6 = (void *) 0x66 gdb_long_test = 17 '\021' (gdb)
save-tracepoints filenameThis 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 Command Files).
(int) $trace_frame
(int) $tracepoint
(int) $trace_line
(char []) $trace_file
(char []) $trace_func
$tracepoint.
Note: $trace_file is not suitable for use in printf,
use output instead.
Here's a simple example of using these convenience variables for
stepping through all the trace snapshots and printing some of their
data.
(gdb) tfind start (gdb) while $trace_frame != -1 > output $trace_file > printf ", line %d (tracepoint #%d)\n", $trace_line, $tracepoint > tfind > end
If your program is too large to fit completely in your target system's memory, you can sometimes use overlays to work around this problem. GDB provides some support for debugging programs that use overlays.
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
overlay's 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 Instruction Larger
Address Space Address Space Address Space
+-----------+ +-----------+ +-----------+
| | | | | |
+-----------+ +-----------+ +-----------+<-- overlay 1
| program | | main | .----| overlay 1 | load address
| variables | | program | | +-----------+
| and heap | | | | | |
+-----------+ | | | +-----------+<-- 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) 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.
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:
The overlay system described above is rather simple, and could be improved in many ways:
To use GDB's overlay support, each overlay in your program must
correspond to a separate section of the executable file. The section's
virtual memory address and load memory address must be the overlay's
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.
GDB's overlay commands all start with the word overlay;
you can abbreviate this as ov or ovly. The commands are:
overlay off
overlay manual
overlay map-overlay and overlay unmap-overlay
commands described below.
overlay map-overlay overlay
overlay map overlay
overlay unmap-overlay overlay
overlay unmap overlay
overlay auto
overlay load-target
overlay load
overlay list-overlays
overlay list
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
$5 = {int (int)} 0x100000 <*foo*>
When foo's overlay is mapped, GDB prints the function's
name normally:
(gdb) overlay list
Section .ov.foo.text, 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, GDB's breakpoint support has some limitations:
overlay auto command (see Overlay Commands), GDB
looks in the inferior's memory for certain variables describing the
current state of the overlays.
Here are the variables your overlay manager must define to support GDB's automatic overlay debugging:
_ovly_table:
struct
{
/* The overlay's mapped address. */
unsigned long vma;
/* The size of the overlay, in bytes. */
unsigned long size;
/* The overlay's load address. */
unsigned long lma;
/* Non-zero if the overlay is currently mapped;
zero otherwise. */
unsigned long mapped;
}
_novlys:
_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 overlay's section in the
executable file. When GDB finds a matching entry, it consults
the entry's 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.
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 Overlay Description). 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 GDB's 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/gdb.base:
overlays.c
ovlymgr.c
overlays.c.
foo.c
bar.c
baz.c
grbx.c
overlays.c.
d10v.ld
m32r.ld
d10v-elf
and m32r-elf targets.
You can build the test program using the d10v-elf GCC
cross-compiler like this:
$ d10v-elf-gcc -g -c overlays.c
$ d10v-elf-gcc -g -c ovlymgr.c
$ d10v-elf-gcc -g -c foo.c
$ d10v-elf-gcc -g -c bar.c
$ d10v-elf-gcc -g -c baz.c
$ d10v-elf-gcc -g -c grbx.c
$ d10v-elf-gcc -g overlays.o ovlymgr.o foo.o bar.o \
baz.o grbx.o -Wl,-Td10v.ld -o overlays
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 d10v.ld.
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 program's native language, and allowing GDB to output values in a manner consistent with the syntax of your program's native language. The language you use to build expressions is called the working language.
There are two ways to control the working language--either 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 demangled--this 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 Displaying the language.
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.
If a source file name ends in one of the following extensions, then GDB infers that its language is the one indicated.
.c
.C
.cc
.cp
.cpp
.cxx
.c++
.m
.f
.F
.mod
.s
.S
In addition, you may set the language associated with a filename extension. See Displaying the 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
languages--but 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.
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.
The following commands help you find out which language is the working language, and also what language source files were written in.
show language
print to
build and compute expressions that may involve variables in your program.
info frame
info source
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
info extensions
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 program's 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 program's source language. See Supported languages,
for the default settings of supported languages.
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
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 Modula-2 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 Supported languages, for further details on specific languages. GDB provides some additional commands for controlling the type checker:
set check type auto
set check type on
set check type off
set check type warn
show type
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.
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 values--for 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 Supported languages, for further details on specific languages. GDB provides some additional commands for controlling the range checker:
set check range auto
set check range on
set check range off
set check range warn
show range
@ and :: operators,
and the {type}addr construct (see Expressions) 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.
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.
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).
For best results when using GNU C++, use the DWARF 2 debugging
format; if it doesn't work on your system, try the stabs+ debugging
format. You can select those formats explicitly with the g++
command-line options -gdwarf-2 and -gstabs+.
See Options for Debugging Your Program or GNU CC.
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:
int with any of its storage-class
specifiers; char; enum; and, for C++, bool.
float, double, and
long double (if supported by the target platform).
(type *).
The following operators are supported. They are listed here in order of increasing precedence:
,
=
op=
a op= b,
and translated to a = a op b.
op= and = have the same precedence.
op is any one of the operators |, ^, &,
<<, >>, +, -, *, /, %.
?:
a ? b : c can be thought
of as: if a then b else c. a should be of an
integral type.
||
&&
|
^
&
==, !=
<, >, <=, >=
<<, >>
@
+, -
*, /, %
++, --
*
++.
&
++.
For debugging C++, GDB implements a use of & beyond what is
allowed in the C++ language itself: you can use &(&ref)
(or, if you prefer, simply &&ref) to examine the address
where a C++ reference variable (declared with &ref) is
stored.
-
++.
!
++.
~
++.
., ->
struct and union data.
.*, ->*
[]
a[i] is defined as
*(a+i). Same precedence as ->.
()
->.
::
struct, union,
and class types.
::
::,
above.
If an operator is redefined in the user code, GDB usually attempts to invoke the redefined version instead of using the operator's predefined meaning.
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.
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.
'), or a number--the 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 character's ordinal value; or of the form \x, where
x is a predefined special character--for example,
\n for newline.
"). Any valid character constant (as described
above) may appear. Double quotes within the string must be preceded by
a backslash, so for instance "a\"b'c" is a string of five
characters.
&.
{
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.
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 GCC 2.95.3 or with GCC 3.1 or newer, using the options-gdwarf-2or-gstabs+. DWARF 2 is preferred over stabs+. Most configurations of GCC emit either DWARF 2 or stabs+ as their default debug format, so you usually don't need to specify a debug format explicitly. Other compilers and/or debug formats are likely to work badly or not at all when using GDB to debug C++ code.
count = aml->GetOriginal(x, y)
this following the same rules as C++.
It does perform integral conversions and promotions, floating-point promotions, arithmetic conversions, pointer conversions, conversions of class objects to base classes, and 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 overload-resolution off. See GDB features for C++.
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 Command completion.
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.
::--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 Program variables).
In addition, when used with HP's C++ compiler, GDB supports calling virtual functions correctly, printing out virtual bases of objects, calling functions in a base subobject, casting objects, and invoking user-defined operators.
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 Having GDB infer the source language,
for further details.
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:
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.
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 {...}.
The @ operator aids in the debugging of dynamic arrays, formed
with pointers and a memory allocation function. See Expressions.
Some GDB commands are particularly useful with C++, and some are designed specifically for use with C++. Here is a summary:
breakpoint menus
rbreak regex
catch throw
catch catch
ptype typename
set print demangle
show print demangle
set print asm-demangle
show print asm-demangle
set print object
show print object
set print vtbl
show print vtbl
vtbl commands do not work on programs compiled with the HP
ANSI C++ compiler (aCC).)
set overload-resolution on
set overload-resolution off
Overloaded symbol names
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 Command completion, for details on how to do this.
This section provides information about some commands and command options that are useful for debugging Objective-C code.
The following commands have been extended to accept Objective-C method names as line specifications:
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 program's source files contain more than one create method,
you'll 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:]
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.
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 executable's symbol table.
:: and .
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:
INTEGER, CARDINAL, and
their subranges.
CHAR and its subranges.
REAL.
POINTER TO
type.
SET and BITSET types.
BOOLEAN.
The following operators are supported, and appear in order of increasing precedence:
,
:=
:= value is
value.
<, >
<=, >=
<.
=, <>, #
<. In GDB scripts, only <> is
available for inequality, since # conflicts with the script
comment character.
IN
<.
OR
AND, &
@
+, -
*
/
*.
DIV, MOD
*.
-
INTEGER and REAL data.
^
NOT
^.
.
RECORD field selector. Defined on RECORD data. Same
precedence as ^.
[]
ARRAY data. Same precedence as ^.
()
PROCEDURE objects. Same precedence
as ^.
::, .
Warning: Sets and their operations are not yet supported, so GDB treats the use of the operatorIN, or the use of operators+,-,*,/,=, ,<>,#,<=, and>=on sets as an error.
Modula-2 also makes available several built-in procedures and functions. In describing these, the following metavariables are used:
ARRAY variable.
CHAR constant or variable.
SET OF mtype (where mtype is the type of m).
All Modula-2 built-in procedures also return a result, described below.
ABS(n)
CAP(c)
CHR(i)
DEC(v)
DEC(v,i)
EXCL(m,s)
FLOAT(i)
HIGH(a)
INC(v)
INC(v,i)
INCL(m,s)
MAX(t)
MIN(t)
ODD(i)
ORD(x)
SIZE(x)
TRUNC(r)
VAL(t,i)
Warning: Sets and their operations are not yet supported, so GDB treats the use of proceduresINCLandEXCLas an error.
H, and octal integers by a trailing B.
E[+|-]nnn, where
[+|-]nnn is the desired exponent. All of the
digits of the floating point constant must be valid decimal (base 10)
digits.
') or double ("). They may
also be expressed by their ordinal value (their ASCII value, usually)
followed by a C.
') or double (").
Escape sequences in the style of C are also allowed. See C and C++ constants, for a brief explanation of escape
sequences.
TRUE and
FALSE.
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 Having GDB set the language automatically, for further details.
A few changes have been made to make Modula-2 programs easier to debug. This is done primarily via loosening its type strictness:
CHR(nnn) format.
:=) returns the value of its right-hand
argument.
Warning: in this release, GDB does not yet perform type or range checking.GDB considers two Modula-2 variables type equivalent if:
TYPE
t1 = t2 statement
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.
:: 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.
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.
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 Expressions), 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.
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.
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 program's symbol table, in the file indicated when you started GDB (see Choosing files), or by one of the file-management commands (see Commands to specify files).
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 Program variables). 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.
info address symbol
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
(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.
whatis expr
whatis
$, the last value in the value history.
ptype typename
class
class-name, struct struct-tag, union
union-tag or enum enum-tag.
ptype expr
ptype
ptype
differs from whatis by printing a detailed description, instead
of just the name of the type.
For example, for this variable declaration:
struct complex {double real; double imag;} v;
the two commands give this output:
(gdb) whatis v
type = struct complex
(gdb) ptype v
type = struct complex {
double real;
double imag;
}
As with whatis, using ptype without an argument refers to
the type of $, the last value in the value history.
info types regexp
info types
i type value gives information on all types in your program whose
names include the string value, but i type ^value$ 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 addr
*, and prints all the variables local to the
scope defined by that location. For example:
(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 collect.
info source
info sources
info functions
info functions regexp
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 (eg.
operator*()), they may be quoted with a backslash.
info variables
info variables regexp
info classes
info classes regexp
info selectors
info selectors regexp
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
set symbol-reloading off
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
on or off setting.
set opaque-type-resolution on
struct, class, or
union--for 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
{<no data fields>}
show opaque-type-resolution
maint print symbols filename
maint print psymbols filename
maint print msymbols filename
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 print psymbols instead, the dump shows information about
symbols that GDB only knows partially--that 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 Commands to specify files, for a discussion of how
GDB reads symbols (in the description of symbol-file).
maint info symtabs [ regexp ]
maint info psymtabs [ regexp ]
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)
debugformat DWARF 2
}
}
(gdb)
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.
To alter the value of a variable, evaluate an assignment expression.
See Expressions. 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 Using GDB with Different Languages, 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 expression's value is
not printed and is not put in the value history (see Value history). 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 program's 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:
(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/a.out
"/home/smith/cc_progs/a.out": can't 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=4GDB 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 Expressions). 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.
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
tbreak command
in conjunction with jump. See Setting breakpoints.
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.
jump *address
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 Continuing and stepping.
The most common occasion to use the jump command is to back
up--perhaps with more breakpoints set--over a portion of a program
that has already executed, in order to examine its execution in more
detail.
signal signal
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 Signals). The signal command
passes the signal directly to your program.
return
return expression
return
command. If you give an
expression argument, its value is used as the function's 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 Selecting a frame), 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 (see Continuing and stepping) resumes execution until the
selected stack frame returns naturally.
call expr
void
returned values.
You can use this variant of the print command if you want to
execute a function from your program, but without cluttering the output
with void returned values. If the result is not void, it
is printed and saved in the value history.
By default, GDB opens the file containing your program's executable code (or the corefile) read-only. This prevents accidental alterations to machine code; but it also prevents you from intentionally patching your program's binary.
If you'd like to be able to patch the binary, you can specify that
explicitly with the set write command. For example, you might
want to turn on internal debugging flags, or even to make emergency
repairs.
set write on
set write off
set write on, GDB opens executable and
core files for both reading and writing; if you specify set write
off (the default), GDB opens them read-only.
If you have already loaded a file, you must load it again (using the
exec-file or core-file command) after changing set
write, for your new setting to take effect.
show write
You may want to specify executable and core dump file names. The usual way to do this is at start-up time, using the arguments to GDB's start-up commands (see Getting In and Out of GDB).
Occasionally it is necessary to change to a different file during a GDB session. Or you may run GDB and forget to specify a file you want to use. In these situations the GDB commands to specify new files are useful.
file filename
run command. If you do not specify a
directory and the file is not found in the GDB working directory,
GDB uses the environment variable PATH as a list of
directories to search, just as the shell does when looking for a program
to run. You can change the value of this variable, for both GDB
and your program, using the path command.
On systems with memory-mapped files, an auxiliary file named
filename.syms may hold symbol table information for
filename. If so, GDB maps in the symbol table from
filename.syms, starting up more quickly. See the
descriptions of the file options -mapped and -readnow
(available on the command line, and with the commands file,
symbol-file, or add-symbol-file, described below),
for more information.
file
file with no argument makes GDB discard any information it
has on both executable file and the symbol table.
exec-file [ filename ]
PATH
if necessary to locate your program. Omitting filename means to
discard information on the executable file.
symbol-file [ filename ]
PATH is
searched when necessary. Use the file command to get both symbol
table and program to run from the same file.
symbol-file with no argument clears out GDB information on your
program's symbol table.
The symbol-file command causes GDB to forget the contents
of its convenience variables, the value history, and all breakpoints and
auto-display expressions. This is because they may contain pointers to
the internal data recording symbols and data types, which are part of
the old symbol table data being discarded inside GDB.
symbol-file does not repeat if you press <RET> again after
executing it once.
When GDB is configured for a particular environment, it
understands debugging information in whatever format is the standard
generated for that environment; you may use either a GNU compiler, or
other compilers that adhere to the local conventions.
Best results are usually obtained from GNU compilers; for example,
using gcc you can generate debugging information for
optimized code.
For most kinds of object files, with the exception of old SVR3 systems
using COFF, the symbol-file command does not normally read the
symbol table in full right away. Instead, it scans the symbol table
quickly to find which source files and which symbols are present. The
details are read later, one source file at a time, as they are needed.
The purpose of this two-stage reading strategy is to make GDB
start up faster. For the most part, it is invisible except for
occasional pauses while the symbol table details for a particular source
file are being read. (The set verbose command can turn these
pauses into messages if desired. See Optional warnings and messages.)
We have not implemented the two-stage strategy for COFF yet. When the
symbol table is stored in COFF format, symbol-file reads the
symbol table data in full right away. Note that "stabs-in-COFF"
still does the two-stage strategy, since the debug info is actually
in stabs format.
symbol-file filename [ -readnow ] [ -mapped ]
file filename [ -readnow ] [ -mapped ]
-readnow option with any of the commands that
load symbol table information, if you want to be sure GDB has the
entire symbol table available.
If memory-mapped files are available on your system through the
mmap system call, you can use another option, -mapped, to
cause GDB to write the symbols for your program into a reusable
file. Future GDB debugging sessions map in symbol information
from this auxiliary symbol file (if the program has not changed), rather
than spending time reading the symbol table from the executable
program. Using the -mapped option has the same effect as
starting GDB with the -mapped command-line option.
You can use both options together, to make sure the auxiliary symbol file has all the symbol information for your program.
The auxiliary symbol file for a program called myprog is called
myprog.syms. Once this file exists (so long as it is newer
than the corresponding executable), GDB always attempts to use
it when you debug myprog; no special options or commands are
needed.
The .syms file is specific to the host machine where you run
GDB. It holds an exact image of the internal GDB
symbol table. It cannot be shared across multiple host platforms.
core-file [ filename ]
core-file with no argument specifies that no core file is
to be used.
Note that the core file is ignored when your program is actually running
under GDB. So, if you have been running your program and you
wish to debug a core file instead, you must kill the subprocess in which
the program is running. To do this, use the kill command
(see Killing the child process).
add-symbol-file filename address
add-symbol-file filename address [ -readnow ] [ -mapped ]
add-symbol-file filename -ssection address ...
add-symbol-file command reads additional symbol table
information from the file filename. You would use this command
when filename has been dynamically loaded (by some other means)
into the program that is running. address should be the memory
address at which the file has been loaded; GDB cannot figure
this out for itself. You can additionally specify an arbitrary number
of -ssection address pairs, to give an explicit
section name and base address for that section. You can specify any
address as an expression.
The symbol table of the file filename is added to the symbol table
originally read with the symbol-file command. You can use the
add-symbol-file command any number of times; the new symbol data
thus read keeps adding to the old. To discard all old symbol data
instead, use the symbol-file command without any arguments.
Although filename is typically a shared library file, an
executable file, or some other object file which has been fully
relocated for loading into a process, you can also load symbolic
information from relocatable .o files, as long as:
add-symbol-file command.
Some embedded operating systems, like Sun Chorus and VxWorks, can load
relocatable files into an already running program; such systems
typically make the requirements above easy to meet. However, it's
important to recognize that many native systems use complex link
procedures (.linkonce section factoring and C++ constructor table
assembly, for example) that make the requirements difficult to meet. In
general, one cannot assume that using add-symbol-file to read a
relocatable object file's symbolic information will have the same effect
as linking the relocatable object file into the program in the normal
way.
add-symbol-file does not repeat if you press <RET> after using it.
You can use the -mapped and -readnow options just as with
the symbol-file command, to change how GDB manages the symbol
table information for filename.
add-shared-symbol-file
add-shared-symbol-file command can be used only under Harris' CXUX
operating system for the Motorola 88k. GDB automatically looks for
shared libraries, however if GDB does not find yours, you can run
add-shared-symbol-file. It takes no arguments.
section
section command changes the base address of section SECTION of
the exec file to ADDR. This can be used if the exec file does not contain
section addresses, (such as in the a.out format), or when the addresses
specified in the file itself are wrong. Each section must be changed
separately. The info files command, described below, lists all
the sections and their addresses.
info files
info target
info files and info target are synonymous; both print the
current target (see Specifying a Debugging Target),
including the names of the executable and core dump files currently in
use by GDB, and the files from which symbols were loaded. The
command help target lists all possible targets rather than
current ones.
maint info sections
maint info sections. In addition to the section information
displayed by info files, this command displays the flags and file
offset of each section in the executable and core dump files. In addition,
maint info sections provides the following command options (which
may be arbitrarily combined):
ALLOBJ
sections
section-flags
ALLOC
LOAD
.bss sections.
RELOC
READONLY
CODE
DATA
ROM
CONSTRUCTOR
HAS_CONTENTS
NEVER_LOAD
COFF_SHARED_LIBRARY
IS_COMMON
set trust-readonly-sections on
The default is off.
set trust-readonly-sections off
All file-specifying commands allow both absolute and relative file names
as arguments. GDB always converts the file name to an absolute file
name and remembers it that way.
GDB supports HP-UX, SunOS, SVr4, Irix 5, and IBM RS/6000 shared
libraries.
GDB automatically loads symbol definitions from shared libraries
when you use the run command, or when you examine a core file.
(Before you issue the run command, GDB does not understand
references to a function in a shared library, however--unless you are
debugging a core file).
On HP-UX, if the program loads a library explicitly, GDB
automatically loads the symbols at the time of the shl_load call.
There are times, however, when you may wish to not automatically load symbol definitions from shared libraries, such as when they are particularly large or there are many of them.
To control the automatic loading of shared library symbols, use the commands:
set auto-solib-add mode
on, symbols from all shared object libraries
will be loaded automatically when the inferior begins execution, you
attach to an independently started inferior, or when the dynamic linker
informs GDB that a new library has been loaded. If mode
is off, symbols must be loaded manually, using the
sharedlibrary command. The default value is on.
show auto-solib-add
To explicitly load shared library symbols, use the sharedlibrary
command:
info share
info sharedlibrary
sharedlibrary regex
share regex
run. If
regex is omitted all shared libraries required by your program are
loaded.
On some systems, such as HP-UX systems, GDB supports autoloading shared library symbols until a limiting threshold size is reached. This provides the benefit of allowing autoloading to remain on by default, but avoids autoloading excessively large shared libraries, up to a threshold that is initially set, but which you can modify if you wish.
Beyond that threshold, symbols from shared libraries must be explicitly
loaded. To load these symbols, use the command sharedlibrary
filename. The base address of the shared library is determined
automatically by GDB and need not be specified.
To display or set the threshold, use the commands:
set auto-solib-limit threshold
sharedlibrary command. The default threshold is 100 (i.e. 100
Mb).
show auto-solib-limit
Shared libraries are also supported in many cross or remote debugging configurations. A copy of the target's libraries need to be present on the host system; they need to be the same as the target libraries, although the copies on the target can be stripped as long as the copies on the host are not.
You need to tell GDB where the target libraries are, so that it can load the correct copies--otherwise, it may try to load the host's libraries. GDB has two variables to specify the search directories for target libraries.
set solib-absolute-prefix path
solib-absolute-prefix to find shared libraries, they need to be laid
out in the same way that they are on the target, with e.g. a
/usr/lib hierarchy under path.
You can set the default value of solib-absolute-prefix by using the
configure-time --with-sysroot option.
show solib-absolute-prefix
set solib-search-path path
solib-search-path is used after
solib-absolute-prefix fails to locate the library, or if the path to
the library is relative instead of absolute. If you want to use
solib-search-path instead of solib-absolute-prefix, be sure to
set solib-absolute-prefix to a nonexistant directory to prevent
GDB from finding your host's libraries.
show solib-search-path
If an executable's debugging information has been extracted to a separate file, the executable should contain a debug link giving the name of the debugging information file (with no directory components), and a checksum of its contents. (The exact form of a debug link is described below.) If the full name of the directory containing the executable is execdir, and the executable has a debug link that specifies the name debugfile, then GDB will automatically search for the debugging information file in three places:
execdir/debugfile,
.debug (that is, the
file execdir/.debug/debugfile, and
globaldebugdir/execdir/debugfile, where
globaldebugdir is the global debug file directory, and
execdir has been turned into a relative path).
So, for example, if you ask GDB to debug /usr/bin/ls,
which has a link containing the name ls.debug, and the global
debug directory is /usr/lib/debug, then GDB will look
for debug information in /usr/bin/ls.debug,
/usr/bin/.debug/ls.debug, and
/usr/lib/debug/usr/bin/ls.debug.
You can set the global debugging info directory's name, and view the name GDB is currently using.
set debug-file-directory directory
show debug-file-directory
A debug link is a special section of the executable file named
.gnu_debuglink. The section must contain:
Any executable file format can carry a debug link, as long as it can
contain a section named .gnu_debuglink with the contents
described above.
The debugging information file itself should be an ordinary
executable, containing a full set of linker symbols, sections, and
debugging information. The sections of the debugging information file
should have the same names, addresses and sizes as the original file,
but they need not contain any data -- much like a .bss section
in an ordinary executable.
As of December 2002, there is no standard GNU utility to produce
separated executable / debugging information file pairs. Ulrich
Drepper's elfutils package, starting with version 0.53,
contains a version of the strip command such that the command
strip foo -f foo.debug removes the debugging information from
the executable file foo, places it in the file
foo.debug, and leaves behind a debug link in foo.
Since there are many different ways to compute CRC's (different
polynomials, reversals, byte ordering, etc.), the simplest way to
describe the CRC used in .gnu_debuglink sections is to give the
complete code for a function that computes it:
unsigned long
gnu_debuglink_crc32 (unsigned long crc,
unsigned char *buf, size_t len)
{
static const unsigned long crc32_table[256] =
{
0x00000000, 0x77073096, 0xee0e612c, 0x990951ba, 0x076dc419,
0x706af48f, 0xe963a535, 0x9e6495a3, 0x0edb8832, 0x79dcb8a4,
0xe0d5e91e, 0x97d2d988, 0x09b64c2b, 0x7eb17cbd, 0xe7b82d07,
0x90bf1d91, 0x1db71064, 0x6ab020f2, 0xf3b97148, 0x84be41de,
0x1adad47d, 0x6ddde4eb, 0xf4d4b551, 0x83d385c7, 0x136c9856,
0x646ba8c0, 0xfd62f97a, 0x8a65c9ec, 0x14015c4f, 0x63066cd9,
0xfa0f3d63, 0x8d080df5, 0x3b6e20c8, 0x4c69105e, 0xd56041e4,
0xa2677172, 0x3c03e4d1, 0x4b04d447, 0xd20d85fd, 0xa50ab56b,
0x35b5a8fa, 0x42b2986c, 0xdbbbc9d6, 0xacbcf940, 0x32d86ce3,
0x45df5c75, 0xdcd60dcf, 0xabd13d59, 0x26d930ac, 0x51de003a,
0xc8d75180, 0xbfd06116, 0x21b4f4b5, 0x56b3c423, 0xcfba9599,
0xb8bda50f, 0x2802b89e, 0x5f058808, 0xc60cd9b2, 0xb10be924,
0x2f6f7c87, 0x58684c11, 0xc1611dab, 0xb6662d3d, 0x76dc4190,
0x01db7106, 0x98d220bc, 0xefd5102a, 0x71b18589, 0x06b6b51f,
0x9fbfe4a5, 0xe8b8d433, 0x7807c9a2, 0x0f00f934, 0x9609a88e,
0xe10e9818, 0x7f6a0dbb, 0x086d3d2d, 0x91646c97, 0xe6635c01,
0x6b6b51f4, 0x1c6c6162, 0x856530d8, 0xf262004e, 0x6c0695ed,
0x1b01a57b, 0x8208f4c1, 0xf50fc457, 0x65b0d9c6, 0x12b7e950,
0x8bbeb8ea, 0xfcb9887c, 0x62dd1ddf, 0x15da2d49, 0x8cd37cf3,
0xfbd44c65, 0x4db26158, 0x3ab551ce, 0xa3bc0074, 0xd4bb30e2,
0x4adfa541, 0x3dd895d7, 0xa4d1c46d, 0xd3d6f4fb, 0x4369e96a,
0x346ed9fc, 0xad678846, 0xda60b8d0, 0x44042d73, 0x33031de5,
0xaa0a4c5f, 0xdd0d7cc9, 0x5005713c, 0x270241aa, 0xbe0b1010,
0xc90c2086, 0x5768b525, 0x206f85b3, 0xb966d409, 0xce61e49f,
0x5edef90e, 0x29d9c998, 0xb0d09822, 0xc7d7a8b4, 0x59b33d17,
0x2eb40d81, 0xb7bd5c3b, 0xc0ba6cad, 0xedb88320, 0x9abfb3b6,
0x03b6e20c, 0x74b1d29a, 0xead54739, 0x9dd277af, 0x04db2615,
0x73dc1683, 0xe3630b12, 0x94643b84, 0x0d6d6a3e, 0x7a6a5aa8,
0xe40ecf0b, 0x9309ff9d, 0x0a00ae27, 0x7d079eb1, 0xf00f9344,
0x8708a3d2, 0x1e01f268, 0x6906c2fe, 0xf762575d, 0x806567cb,
0x196c3671, 0x6e6b06e7, 0xfed41b76, 0x89d32be0, 0x10da7a5a,
0x67dd4acc, 0xf9b9df6f, 0x8ebeeff9, 0x17b7be43, 0x60b08ed5,
0xd6d6a3e8, 0xa1d1937e, 0x38d8c2c4, 0x4fdff252, 0xd1bb67f1,
0xa6bc5767, 0x3fb506dd, 0x48b2364b, 0xd80d2bda, 0xaf0a1b4c,
0x36034af6, 0x41047a60, 0xdf60efc3, 0xa867df55, 0x316e8eef,
0x4669be79, 0xcb61b38c, 0xbc66831a, 0x256fd2a0, 0x5268e236,
0xcc0c7795, 0xbb0b4703, 0x220216b9, 0x5505262f, 0xc5ba3bbe,
0xb2bd0b28, 0x2bb45a92, 0x5cb36a04, 0xc2d7ffa7, 0xb5d0cf31,
0x2cd99e8b, 0x5bdeae1d, 0x9b64c2b0, 0xec63f226, 0x756aa39c,
0x026d930a, 0x9c0906a9, 0xeb0e363f, 0x72076785, 0x05005713,
0x95bf4a82, 0xe2b87a14, 0x7bb12bae, 0x0cb61b38, 0x92d28e9b,
0xe5d5be0d, 0x7cdcefb7, 0x0bdbdf21, 0x86d3d2d4, 0xf1d4e242,
0x68ddb3f8, 0x1fda836e, 0x81be16cd, 0xf6b9265b, 0x6fb077e1,
0x18b74777, 0x88085ae6, 0xff0f6a70, 0x66063bca, 0x11010b5c,
0x8f659eff, 0xf862ae69, 0x616bffd3, 0x166ccf45, 0xa00ae278,
0xd70dd2ee, 0x4e048354, 0x3903b3c2, 0xa7672661, 0xd06016f7,
0x4969474d, 0x3e6e77db, 0xaed16a4a, 0xd9d65adc, 0x40df0b66,
0x37d83bf0, 0xa9bcae53, 0xdebb9ec5, 0x47b2cf7f, 0x30b5ffe9,
0xbdbdf21c, 0xcabac28a, 0x53b39330, 0x24b4a3a6, 0xbad03605,
0xcdd70693, 0x54de5729, 0x23d967bf, 0xb3667a2e, 0xc4614ab8,
0x5d681b02, 0x2a6f2b94, 0xb40bbe37, 0xc30c8ea1, 0x5a05df1b,
0x2d02ef8d
};
unsigned char *end;
crc = ~crc & 0xffffffff;
for (end = buf + len; buf < end; ++buf)
crc = crc32_table[(crc ^ *buf) & 0xff] ^ (crc >> 8);
return ~crc & 0xffffffff;
}
While reading a symbol file, GDB occasionally encounters problems,
such as symbol types it does not recognize, or known bugs in compiler
output. By default, GDB does not notify you of such problems, since
they are relatively common and primarily of interest to people
debugging compilers. If you are interested in seeing information
about ill-constructed symbol tables, you can either ask GDB to print
only one message about each such type of problem, no matter how many
times the problem occurs; or you can ask GDB to print more messages,
to see how many times the problems occur, with the set
complaints command (see Optional warnings and messages).
The messages currently printed, and their meanings, include:
inner block not inside outer block in symbol
(don't know)" if the outer block is not a
function.
block at address out of order
set verbose on. See Optional warnings and messages.)
bad block start address patched
bad string table offset in symbol n
foo, which may cause other problems if many symbols end up
with this name.
unknown symbol type 0xnn
0xnn is the symbol type of the
uncomprehended information, in hexadecimal.
GDB circumvents the error by ignoring this symbol information.
This usually allows you to debug your program, though certain symbols
are not accessible. If you encounter such a problem and feel like
debugging it, you can debug gdb with itself, breakpoint
on complain, then go up to the function read_dbx_symtab
and examine *bufp to see the symbol.
stub type has NULL name
const/volatile indicator missing (ok if using g++ v1.x), got...
info mismatch between compiler and debugger
A target is the execution environment occupied by your program.
Often, GDB runs in the same host environment as your program;
in that case, the debugging target is specified as a side effect when
you use the file or core commands. When you need more
flexibility--for example, running GDB on a physically separate
host, or controlling a standalone system over a serial port or a
realtime system over a TCP/IP connection--you can use the target
command to specify one of the target types configured for GDB
(see Commands for managing targets).
There are three classes of targets: processes, core files, and executable files. GDB can work concurrently on up to three active targets, one in each class. This allows you to (for example) start a process and inspect its activity without abandoning your work on a core file.
For example, if you execute gdb a.out, then the executable file
a.out is the only active target. If you designate a core file as
well--presumably from a prior run that crashed and coredumped--then
GDB has two active targets and uses them in tandem, looking
first in the corefile target, then in the executable file, to satisfy
requests for memory addresses. (Typically, these two classes of target
are complementary, since core files contain only a program's
read-write memory--variables and so on--plus machine status, while
executable files contain only the program text and initialized data.)
When you type run, your executable file becomes an active process
target as well. When a process target is active, all GDB
commands requesting memory addresses refer to that target; addresses in
an active core file or executable file target are obscured while the
process target is active.
Use the core-file and exec-file commands to select a new
core file or executable target (see Commands to specify files). To specify as a target a process that is already running, use
the attach command (see Debugging an already-running process).
target type parameters
Further parameters are interpreted by the target protocol, but typically include things like device names or host names to connect with, process numbers, and baud rates.
The target command does not repeat if you press <RET> again
after executing the command.
help target
info target or info files
(see Commands to specify files).
help target name
set gnutarget args
set gnutarget command. Unlike most target commands,
with gnutarget the target refers to a program, not a machine.
Warning: To specify a file format with set gnutarget,
you must know the actual BFD name.
show gnutarget
show gnutarget command to display what file format
gnutarget is set to read. If you have not set gnutarget,
GDB will determine the file format for each file automatically,
and show gnutarget displays The current BDF target is "auto".
Here are some common targets (available, or not, depending on the GDB configuration):
target exec program
target exec program is the same as
exec-file program.
target core filename
target core filename is the same as
core-file filename.
target remote dev
/dev/ttya). See Remote debugging. target remote
supports the load command. This is only useful if you have
some other way of getting the stub to the target system, and you can put
it somewhere in memory where it won't get clobbered by the download.
target sim
target sim
load
run
works; however, you cannot assume that a specific memory map, device drivers, or even basic I/O is available, although some simulators do provide these. For info about any processor-specific simulator details, see the appropriate section in Embedded Processors.
Some configurations may include these targets as well:
target nrom dev
Different targets are available on different configurations of GDB; your configuration may have more or fewer targets.
Many remote targets require you to download the executable's code once you've successfully established a connection.
load filename
load command may be available. Where it exists, it
is meant to make filename (an executable) available for debugging
on the remote system--by downloading, or dynamic linking, for example.
load also records the filename symbol table in GDB, like
the add-symbol-file command.
If your GDB does not have a load command, attempting to
execute it gets the error message "You can't do that when your
target is ..."
The file is loaded at whatever address is specified in the executable. For some object file formats, you can specify the load address when you link the program; for other formats, like a.out, the object file format specifies a fixed address.
load does not repeat if you press <RET> again after using it.
Some types of processors, such as the MIPS, PowerPC, and Renesas SH, offer the ability to run either big-endian or little-endian byte orders. Usually the executable or symbol will include a bit to designate the endian-ness, and you will not need to worry about which to use. However, you may still find it useful to adjust GDB's idea of processor endian-ness manually.
set endian big
set endian little
set endian auto
show endian
Note that these commands merely adjust interpretation of symbolic data on the host, and that they have absolutely no effect on the target system.
If you are trying to debug a program running on a machine that cannot run GDB in the usual way, it is often useful to use remote debugging. For example, you might use remote debugging on an operating system kernel, or on a small system which does not have a general purpose operating system powerful enough to run a full-featured debugger.
Some configurations of GDB have special serial or TCP/IP interfaces to make this work with particular debugging targets. In addition, GDB comes with a generic serial protocol (specific to GDB, but not specific to any particular target system) which you can use if you write the remote stubs--the code that runs on the remote system to communicate with GDB.
Other remote targets may be available in your
configuration of GDB; use help target to list them.
Some targets support kernel object display. Using this facility, GDB communicates specially with the underlying operating system and can display information about operating system-level objects such as mutexes and other synchronization objects. Exactly which objects can be displayed is determined on a per-OS basis.
Use the set os command to set the operating system. This tells
GDB which kernel object display module to initialize:
(gdb) set os cisco
The associated command show os displays the operating system
set with the set os command; if no operating system has been
set, show os will display an empty string "".
If set os succeeds, GDB will display some information
about the operating system, and will create a new info command
which can be used to query the target. The info command is named
after the operating system:
(gdb) info cisco List of Cisco Kernel Objects Object Description any Any and all objects
Further subcommands can be used to query about particular objects known by the kernel.
There is currently no way to determine whether a given operating system is supported other than to try setting it with set os name, where name is the name of the operating system you want to try.
On the GDB host machine, you will need an unstripped copy of your program, since GDB needs symobl and debugging information. Start up GDB as usual, using the name of the local copy of your program as the first argument.
If you're using a serial line, you may want to give GDB the
--baud option, or use the set remotebaud command
before the target command.
After that, use target remote to establish communications with
the target machine. Its argument specifies how to communicate--either
via a devicename attached to a direct serial line, or a TCP or UDP port
(possibly to a terminal server which in turn has a serial line to the
target). For example, to use a serial line connected to the device
named /dev/ttyb:
target remote /dev/ttyb
To use a TCP connection, use an argument of the form
host:port or tcp:host:port.
For example, to connect to port 2828 on a
terminal server named manyfarms:
target remote manyfarms:2828
If your remote target is actually running on the same machine as
your debugger session (e.g. a simulator of your target running on
the same host), you can omit the hostname. For example, to connect
to port 1234 on your local machine:
target remote :1234
Note that the colon is still required here.
To use a UDP connection, use an argument of the form
udp:host:port. For example, to connect to UDP port 2828
on a terminal server named manyfarms:
target remote udp:manyfarms:2828
When using a UDP connection for remote debugging, you should keep in mind that the `U' stands for "Unreliable". UDP can silently drop packets on busy or unreliable networks, which will cause havoc with your debugging session.
Now you can use all the usual commands to examine and change data and to step and continue the remote program.
Whenever GDB is waiting for the remote program, if you type the
interrupt character (often <C-C>), GDB attempts to stop the
program. This may or may not succeed, depending in part on the hardware
and the serial drivers the remote system uses. If you type the
interrupt character once again, GDB displays this prompt:
Interrupted while waiting for the program. Give up (and stop debugging it)? (y or n)
If you type y, GDB abandons the remote debugging session.
(If you decide you want to try again later, you can use target
remote again to connect once more.) If you type n, GDB
goes back to waiting.
detach
detach command to release it from GDB control.
Detaching from the target normally resumes its execution, but the results
will depend on your particular remote stub. After the detach
command, GDB is free to connect to another target.
disconnect
disconnect command behaves like detach, except that
the target is generally not resumed. It will wait for GDB
(this instance or another one) to connect and continue debugging. After
the disconnect command, GDB is again free to connect to
another target.
gdbserver programgdbserver is a control program for Unix-like systems, which
allows you to connect your program with a remote GDB via
target remote--but without linking in the usual debugging stub.
gdbserver is not a complete replacement for the debugging stubs,
because it requires essentially the same operating-system facilities
that GDB itself does. In fact, a system that can run
gdbserver to connect to a remote GDB could also run
GDB locally! gdbserver is sometimes useful nevertheless,
because it is a much smaller program than GDB itself. It is
also easier to port than all of GDB, so you may be able to get
started more quickly on a new system by using gdbserver.
Finally, if you develop code for real-time systems, you may find that
the tradeoffs involved in real-time operation make it more convenient to
do as much development work as possible on another system, for example
by cross-compiling. You can use gdbserver to make a similar
choice for debugging.
GDB and gdbserver communicate via either a serial line
or a TCP connection, using the standard GDB remote serial
protocol.
gdbserver does not need your program's symbol table, so you can
strip the program if necessary to save space. GDB on the host
system does all the symbol handling.
To use the server, you must tell it how to communicate with GDB;
the name of your program; and the arguments for your program. The usual
syntax is:
target> gdbserver comm program [ args ... ]
comm is either a device name (to use a serial line) or a TCP
hostname and portnumber. For example, to debug Emacs with the argument
foo.txt and communicate with GDB over the serial port
/dev/com1:
target> gdbserver /dev/com1 emacs foo.txt
gdbserver waits passively for the host GDB to communicate
with it.
To use a TCP connection instead of a serial line:
target> gdbserver host:2345 emacs foo.txt
The only difference from the previous example is the first argument,
specifying that you are communicating with the host GDB via
TCP. The host:2345 argument means that gdbserver is to
expect a TCP connection from machine host to local TCP port 2345.
(Currently, the host part is ignored.) You can choose any number
you want for the port number as long as it does not conflict with any
TCP ports already in use on the target system (for example, 23 is
reserved for telnet).5 You must use the same port number with the host GDB
target remote command.
On some targets, gdbserver can also attach to running programs.
This is accomplished via the --attach argument. The syntax is:
target> gdbserver comm --attach pid
pid is the process ID of a currently running process. It isn't necessary
to point gdbserver at a binary for the running process.
You can debug processes by name instead of process ID if your target has the
pidof utility:
target> gdbserver comm --attach `pidof PROGRAM`
In case more than one copy of PROGRAM is running, or PROGRAM
has multiple threads, most versions of pidof support the
-s option to only return the first process ID.
gdbserver prior to using
the target remote command. Otherwise you may get an error whose
text depends on the host system, but which usually looks something like
Connection refused. You don't need to use the load
command in GDB when using gdbserver, since the program is
already on the target.
gdbserve.nlm programgdbserve.nlm is a control program for NetWare systems, which
allows you to connect your program with a remote GDB via
target remote.
GDB and gdbserve.nlm communicate via a serial line,
using the standard GDB remote serial protocol.
gdbserve.nlm does not need your program's symbol table, so you
can strip the program if necessary to save space. GDB on the
host system does all the symbol handling.
To use the server, you must tell it how to communicate with
GDB; the name of your program; and the arguments for your
program. The syntax is:
load gdbserve [ BOARD=board ] [ PORT=port ]
[ BAUD=baud ] program [ args ... ]
board and port specify the serial line; baud specifies the baud rate used by the connection. port and node default to 0, baud defaults to 9600bps.
For example, to debug Emacs with the argument foo.txtand
communicate with GDB over serial port number 2 or board 1
using a 19200bps connection:
load gdbserve BOARD=1 PORT=2 BAUD=19200 emacs foo.txt
The following configuration options are available when debugging remote programs:
set remote hardware-watchpoint-limit limit
set remote hardware-breakpoint-limit limit
The stub files provided with GDB implement the target side of the
communication protocol, and the GDB side is implemented in the
GDB source file remote.c. Normally, you can simply allow
these subroutines to communicate, and ignore the details. (If you're
implementing your own stub file, you can still ignore the details: start
with one of the existing stub files. sparc-stub.c is the best
organized, and therefore the easiest to read.)
To debug a program running on another machine (the debugging target machine), you must first arrange for all the usual prerequisites for the program to run by itself. For example, for a C program, you need:
crt0. The startup routine may be supplied by
your hardware supplier, or you may have to write your own.
The next step is to arrange for your program to use a serial port to communicate with the machine where GDB is running (the host machine). In general terms, the scheme looks like this:
target remote command
(see Specifying a Debugging Target).
On certain remote targets, you can use an auxiliary program
gdbserver instead of linking a stub into your program.
See Using the gdbserver program, for details.
The debugging stub is specific to the architecture of the remote
machine; for example, use sparc-stub.c to debug programs on
SPARC boards.
These working remote stubs are distributed with GDB:
i386-stub.c
m68k-stub.c
sh-stub.c
sparc-stub.c
sparcl-stub.c
The README file in the GDB distribution may list other
recently added stubs.
The debugging stub for your architecture supplies these three subroutines:
set_debug_traps
handle_exception to run when your
program stops. You must call this subroutine explicitly near the
beginning of your program.
handle_exception
handle_exception to
run when a trap is triggered.
handle_exception takes control when your program stops during
execution (for example, on a breakpoint), and mediates communications
with GDB on the host machine. This is where the communications
protocol is implemented; handle_exception acts as the GDB
representative on the target machine. It begins by sending summary
information on the state of your program, then continues to execute,
retrieving and transmitting any information GDB needs, until you
execute a GDB command that makes your program resume; at that point,
handle_exception returns control to your own code on the target
machine.
breakpoint
handle_exception--in effect, to GDB. On some machines,
simply receiving characters on the serial port may also trigger a trap;
again, in that situation, you don't need to call breakpoint from
your own program--simply running target remote from the host
GDB session gets control.
Call breakpoint if none of these is true, or if you simply want
to make certain your program stops at a predetermined point for the
start of your debugging session.
The debugging stubs that come with GDB are set up for a particular chip architecture, but they have no information about the rest of your debugging target machine.
First of all you need to tell the stub how to communicate with the serial port.
int getDebugChar()
getchar for your target system; a
different name is used to allow you to distinguish the two if you wish.
void putDebugChar(int)
putchar for your target system; a
different name is used to allow you to distinguish the two if you wish.
If you want GDB to be able to stop your program while it is
running, you need to use an interrupt-driven serial driver, and arrange
for it to stop when it receives a ^C (\003, the control-C
character). That is the character which GDB uses to tell the
remote system to stop.
Getting the debugging target to return the proper status to GDB
probably requires changes to the standard stub; one quick and dirty way
is to just execute a breakpoint instruction (the "dirty" part is that
GDB reports a SIGTRAP instead of a SIGINT).
Other routines you need to supply are:
void exceptionHandler (int exception_number, void *exception_address)
For the 386, exception_address should be installed as an interrupt
gate so that interrupts are masked while the handler runs. The gate
should be at privilege level 0 (the most privileged level). The
SPARC and 68k stubs are able to mask interrupts themselves without
help from exceptionHandler.
void flush_i_cache()
On target machines that have instruction caches, GDB requires this function to make certain that the state of your program is stable.
You must also make sure this library routine is available:
void *memset(void *, int, int)
memset that sets an area of
memory to a known value. If you have one of the free versions of
libc.a, memset can be found there; otherwise, you must
either obtain it from your hardware manufacturer, or write your own.
If you do not use the GNU C compiler, you may need other standard
library subroutines as well; this varies from one stub to another,
but in general the stubs are likely to use any of the common library
subroutines which gcc generates as inline code.
In summary, when your program is ready to debug, you must follow these steps.
getDebugChar,putDebugChar,flush_i_cache,memset,exceptionHandler.
set_debug_traps(); breakpoint();
exceptionHook. Normally you just use:
void (*exceptionHook)() = 0;
but if before calling set_debug_traps, you set it to point to a
function in your program, that function is called when
GDB continues after stopping on a trap (for example, bus
error). The function indicated by exceptionHook is called with
one parameter: an int which is the exception number.
While nearly all GDB commands are available for all native and cross versions of the debugger, there are some exceptions. This chapter describes things that are only available in certain configurations.
There are three major categories of configurations: native configurations, where the host and target are the same, embedded operating system configurations, which are usually the same for several different processor architectures, and bare embedded processors, which are quite different from each other.
This section describes details specific to particular native configurations.
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.
Many versions of SVR4 provide a facility called /proc that can be
used to examine the image of a running process using file-system
subroutines. If GDB is configured for an operating system with
this facility, the command info proc is available to report on
several kinds of information about the process running your program.
info proc works only on SVR4 systems that include the
procfs code. This includes OSF/1 (Digital Unix), Solaris, Irix,
and Unixware, but not HP-UX or GNU/Linux, for example.
info proc
info proc mappings
DJGPP is the port of GNU development tools to MS-DOS and MS-Windows. DJGPP programs are 32-bit protected-mode programs that use the DPMI (DOS Protected-Mode Interface) API to run on top of real-mode DOS systems and their emulations. GDB supports native debugging of DJGPP programs, and defines a few commands specific to the DJGPP port. This subsection describes those commands.
info dos
info dos sysinfo
info dos gdt
info dos ldt
info dos idt
A typical DJGPP program uses 3 segments: a code segment, a data segment (used for both data and the stack), and a DOS segment (which allows access to DOS/BIOS data structures and absolute addresses in conventional memory). However, the DPMI host will usually define additional segments in order to support the DPMI environment.
These commands allow to display entries from the descriptor tables.
Without an argument, all entries from the specified table are
displayed. An argument, which should be an integer expression, means
display a single entry whose index is given by the argument. For
example, here's a convenient way to display information about the
debugged program's data segment:
(gdb) info dos ldt $ds
0x13f: base=0x11970000 limit=0x0009ffff 32-Bit Data (Read/Write, Exp-up)
This comes in handy when you want to see whether a pointer is outside
the data segment's limit (i.e. garbled).
info dos pde
info dos pte
Without an argument, info dos pde displays the entire Page Directory, and info dos pte displays all the entries in all of the Page Tables. An argument, an integer expression, given to the info dos pde command means display only that entry from the Page Directory table. An argument given to the info dos pte command means display entries from a single Page Table, the one pointed to by the specified entry in the Page Directory.
These commands are useful when your program uses DMA (Direct Memory Access), which needs physical addresses to program the DMA controller.
These commands are supported only with some DPMI servers.
info dos address-pte addr
i is stored:
(gdb) info dos address-pte __djgpp_base_address + (char *)&i
Page Table entry for address 0x11a00d30:
Base=0x02698000 Dirty Acc. Not-Cached Write-Back Usr Read-Write +0xd30
This says that i is stored at offset 0xd30 from the page
whose physical base address is 0x02698000, and prints all the
attributes of that page.
Note that you must cast the addresses of variables to a char *,
since otherwise the value of __djgpp_base_address, the base
address of all variables and functions in a DJGPP program, will
be added using the rules of C pointer arithmetics: if i is
declared an int, GDB will add 4 times the value of
__djgpp_base_address to the address of i.
Here's another example, it displays the Page Table entry for the
transfer buffer:
(gdb) info dos address-pte *((unsigned *)&_go32_info_block + 3)
Page Table entry for address 0x29110:
Base=0x00029000 Dirty Acc. Not-Cached Write-Back Usr Read-Write +0x110
(The + 3 offset is because the transfer buffer's address is the
3rd member of the _go32_info_block structure.) The output of
this command clearly shows that addresses in conventional memory are
mapped 1:1, i.e. the physical and linear addresses are identical.
This command is supported only with some DPMI servers.
info w32
info w32 selector
GetThreadSelectorEntry function.
It takes an optional argument that is evaluated to
a long value to give the information about this given selector.
Without argument, this command displays information
about the the six segment registers.
info dll
dll-symbols
set new-console mode
on the debuggee will
be started in a new console on next start.
If mode is offi, the debuggee will
be started in the same console as the debugger.
show new-console
set new-group mode
show new-group
set debugevents
set debugexec
set debugexceptions
set debugmemory
set shell
show shell
Very often on windows, some of the DLLs that your program relies on do
not include symbolic debugging information (for example,
kernel32.dll). When GDB doesn't recognize any debugging
symbols in a DLL, it relies on the minimal amount of symbolic
information contained in the DLL's export table. This subsubsection
describes working with such symbols, known internally to GDB as
"minimal symbols".
Note that before the debugged program has started execution, no DLLs
will have been loaded. The easiest way around this problem is simply to
start the program -- either by setting a breakpoint or letting the
program run once to completion. It is also possible to force
GDB to load a particular DLL before starting the executable --
see the shared library information in see Files or the
dll-symbols command in see Cygwin Native. Currently,
explicitly loading symbols from a DLL with no debugging information will
cause the symbol names to be duplicated in GDB's lookup table,
which may adversely affect symbol lookup performance.
In keeping with the naming conventions used by the Microsoft debugging
tools, DLL export symbols are made available with a prefix based on the
DLL name, for instance KERNEL32!CreateFileA. The plain name is
also entered into the symbol table, so CreateFileA is often
sufficient. In some cases there will be name clashes within a program
(particularly if the executable itself includes full debugging symbols)
necessitating the use of the fully qualified name when referring to the
contents of the DLL. Use single-quotes around the name to avoid the
exclamation mark ("!") being interpreted as a language operator.
Note that the internal name of the DLL may be all upper-case, even
though the file name of the DLL is lower-case, or vice-versa. Since
symbols within GDB are case-sensitive this may cause
some confusion. If in doubt, try the info functions and
info variables commands or even maint print msymbols (see
see Symbols). Here's an example:
(gdb) info function CreateFileA All functions matching regular expression "CreateFileA": Non-debugging symbols: 0x77e885f4 CreateFileA 0x77e885f4 KERNEL32!CreateFileA
(gdb) info function ! All functions matching regular expression "!": Non-debugging symbols: 0x6100114c cygwin1!__assert 0x61004034 cygwin1!_dll_crt0@0 0x61004240 cygwin1!dll_crt0(per_process *) [etc...]
Symbols extracted from a DLL's export table do not contain very much type information. All that GDB can do is guess whether a symbol refers to a function or variable depending on the linker section that contains the symbol. Also note that the actual contents of the memory contained in a DLL are not available unless the program is running. This means that you cannot examine the contents of a variable or disassemble a function within a DLL without a running program.
Variables are generally treated as pointers and dereferenced
automatically. For this reason, it is often necessary to prefix a
variable name with the address-of operator ("&") and provide explicit
type information in the command. Here's an example of the type of
problem:
(gdb) print 'cygwin1!__argv' $1 = 268572168
(gdb) x 'cygwin1!__argv' 0x10021610: "\230y\""
And two possible solutions:
(gdb) print ((char **)'cygwin1!__argv')[0] $2 = 0x22fd98 "/cygdrive/c/mydirectory/myprogram"
(gdb) x/2x &'cygwin1!__argv' 0x610c0aa8 <cygwin1!__argv>: 0x10021608 0x00000000 (gdb) x/x 0x10021608 0x10021608: 0x0022fd98 (gdb) x/s 0x0022fd98 0x22fd98: "/cygdrive/c/mydirectory/myprogram"
Setting a break point within a DLL is possible even before the program
starts execution. However, under these circumstances, GDB can't
examine the initial instructions of the function in order to skip the
function's frame set-up code. You can work around this by using "*&"
to set the breakpoint at a raw memory address:
(gdb) break *&'python22!PyOS_Readline' Breakpoint 1 at 0x1e04eff0
The author of these extensions is not entirely convinced that setting a
break point within a shared DLL like kernel32.dll is completely
safe.
This section describes configurations involving the debugging of embedded operating systems that are available for several different architectures.
target vxworks machinename
On VxWorks, load links filename dynamically on the
current target system as well as adding its symbols in GDB.
GDB enables developers to spawn and debug tasks running on networked
VxWorks targets from a Unix host. Already-running tasks spawned from
the VxWorks shell can also be debugged. GDB uses code that runs on
both the Unix host and on the VxWorks target. The program
gdb is installed and executed on the Unix host. (It may be
installed with the name vxgdb, to distinguish it from a
GDB for debugging programs on the host itself.)
VxWorks-timeout args
vxworks-timeout.
This option is set by the user, and args represents the number of
seconds GDB waits for responses to rpc's. You might use this if
your VxWorks target is a slow software simulator or is on the far side
of a thin network line.
The following information on connecting to VxWorks was current when this manual was produced; newer releases of VxWorks may use revised procedures.
To use GDB with VxWorks, you must rebuild your VxWorks kernel
to include the remote debugging interface routines in the VxWorks
library rdb.a. To do this, define INCLUDE_RDB in the
VxWorks configuration file configAll.h and rebuild your VxWorks
kernel. The resulting kernel contains rdb.a, and spawns the
source debugging task tRdbTask when VxWorks is booted. For more
information on configuring and remaking VxWorks, see the manufacturer's
manual.
Once you have included rdb.a in your VxWorks system image and set
your Unix execution search path to find GDB, you are ready to
run GDB. From your Unix host, run gdb (or
vxgdb, depending on your installation).
GDB comes up showing the prompt:
(vxgdb)
The GDB command target lets you connect to a VxWorks target on the
network. To connect to a target whose host name is "tt", type:
(vxgdb) target vxworks ttGDB displays messages like these:
Attaching remote machine across net... Connected to tt.GDB then attempts to read the symbol tables of any object modules loaded into the VxWorks target since it was last booted. GDB locates these files by searching the directories listed in the command search path (see Your program's environment); if it fails to find an object file, it displays a message such as:
prog.o: No such file or directory.
When this happens, add the appropriate directory to the search path with
the GDB command path, and execute the target
command again.
If you have connected to the VxWorks target and you want to debug an
object that has not yet been loaded, you can use the GDB
load command to download a file from Unix to VxWorks
incrementally. The object file given as an argument to the load
command is actually opened twice: first by the VxWorks target in order
to download the code, then by GDB in order to read the symbol
table. This can lead to problems if the current working directories on
the two systems differ. If both systems have NFS mounted the same
filesystems, you can avoid these problems by using absolute paths.
Otherwise, it is simplest to set the working directory on both systems
to the directory in which the object file resides, and then to reference
the file by its name, without any path. For instance, a program
prog.o may reside in vxpath/vw/demo/rdb in VxWorks
and in hostpath/vw/demo/rdb on the host. To load this
program, type this on VxWorks:
-> cd "vxpath/vw/demo/rdb"
Then, in GDB, type:
(vxgdb) cd hostpath/vw/demo/rdb (vxgdb) load prog.oGDB displays a response similar to this:
Reading symbol data from wherever/vw/demo/rdb/prog.o... done.
You can also use the load command to reload an object module
after editing and recompiling the corresponding source file. Note that
this makes GDB delete all currently-defined breakpoints,
auto-displays, and convenience variables, and to clear the value
history. (This is necessary in order to preserve the integrity of
debugger's data structures that reference the target system's symbol
table.)
You can also attach to an existing task using the attach command as
follows:
(vxgdb) attach task
where task is the VxWorks hexadecimal task ID. The task can be running or suspended when you attach to it. Running tasks are suspended at the time of attachment.
This section goes into details specific to particular embedded configurations.
target rdi dev
target rdp dev
target hms dev
device and speed to control the serial
line and the communications speed used.
target e7000 dev
target sh3 dev
target sh3e dev
When you select remote debugging to a Renesas SH, H8/300, or H8/500
board, the load command downloads your program to the Renesas
board and also opens it as the current executable target for
GDB on your host (like the file command).
GDB needs to know these things to talk to your
Renesas SH, H8/300, or H8/500:
target hms, the remote debugging interface
for Renesas microprocessors, or target e7000, the in-circuit
emulator for the Renesas SH and the Renesas 300H. (target hms is
the default when GDB is configured specifically for the Renesas SH,
H8/300, or H8/500.)
Use the special GDB command device port if you
need to explicitly set the serial device. The default port is the
first available port on your host. This is only necessary on Unix
hosts, where it is typically something like /dev/ttya.
GDB has another special command to set the communications
speed: speed bps. This command also is only used from Unix
hosts; on DOS hosts, set the line speed as usual from outside GDB with
the DOS mode command (for instance,
mode com2:9600,n,8,1,p for a 9600bps connection).
The device and speed commands are available only when you
use a Unix host to debug your Renesas microprocessor programs. If you
use a DOS host,
GDB depends on an auxiliary terminate-and-stay-resident program
called asynctsr to communicate with the development board
through a PC serial port. You must also use the DOS mode command
to set up the serial port on the DOS side.
The following sample session illustrates the steps needed to start a
program under GDB control on an H8/300. The example uses a
sample H8/300 program called t.x. The procedure is the same for
the Renesas SH and the H8/500.
First hook up your development board. In this example, we use a
board attached to serial port COM2; if you use a different serial
port, substitute its name in the argument of the mode command.
When you call asynctsr, the auxiliary comms program used by the
debugger, you give it just the numeric part of the serial port's name;
for example, asyncstr 2 below runs asyncstr on
COM2.
C:\H8300\TEST> asynctsr 2 C:\H8300\TEST> mode com2:9600,n,8,1,p Resident portion of MODE loaded COM2: 9600, n, 8, 1, p
Warning: We have noticed a bug in PC-NFS that conflicts withasynctsr. If you also run PC-NFS on your DOS host, you may need to disable it, or even boot without it, to useasynctsrto control your development board.
Now that serial communications are set up, and the development board is
connected, you can start up GDB. Call gdb with
the name of your program as the argument. GDB prompts
you, as usual, with the prompt (gdb). Use two special
commands to begin your debugging session: target hms to specify
cross-debugging to the Renesas board, and the load command to
download your program to the board. load displays the names of
the program's sections, and a * for each 2K of data downloaded.
(If you want to refresh GDB data on symbols or on the
executable file without downloading, use the GDB commands
file or symbol-file. These commands, and load
itself, are described in Commands to specify files.)
(eg-C:\H8300\TEST) gdb t.x 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 6.1, Copyright 1992 Free Software Foundation, Inc... (gdb) target hms Connected to remote H8/300 HMS system. (gdb) load t.x .text : 0x8000 .. 0xabde *********** .data : 0xabde .. 0xad30 * .stack : 0xf000 .. 0xf014 *
At this point, you're ready to run or debug your program. From here on,
you can use all the usual GDB commands. The break command
sets breakpoints; the run command starts your program;
print or x display data; the continue command
resumes execution after stopping at a breakpoint. You can use the
help command at any time to find out more about GDB commands.
Remember, however, that operating system facilities aren't available on your development board; for example, if your program hangs, you can't send an interrupt--but you can press the RESET switch!
Use the RESET button on the development board
In either case, GDB sees the effect of a RESET on the development board as a "normal exit" of your program.
You can use the E7000 in-circuit emulator to develop code for either the
Renesas SH or the H8/300H. Use one of these forms of the target
e7000 command to connect GDB to your E7000:
target e7000 port speed
com2). The third argument is the line speed in bits per second
(for example, 9600).
target e7000 hostname
telnet to connect.
Some GDB commands are available only for the H8/300:
set machine h8300
set machine h8300h
set machine. You can use show machine
to check which variant is currently in effect.
set memory mod
show memory
set memory; check which memory model is in effect with show
memory. The accepted values for mod are small,
big, medium, and compact.
target m32r dev
target m32rsdi dev
The Motorola m68k configurat