Using-Agent-Expressions.html 6.0 KB

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  65. <h3 class="section">F.3 Using Agent Expressions</h3>
  66. <p>Agent expressions can be used in several different ways by <small>GDB</small>,
  67. and the debugger can generate different bytecode sequences as appropriate.
  68. </p>
  69. <p>One possibility is to do expression evaluation on the target rather
  70. than the host, such as for the conditional of a conditional
  71. tracepoint. In such a case, <small>GDB</small> compiles the source
  72. expression into a bytecode sequence that simply gets values from
  73. registers or memory, does arithmetic, and returns a result.
  74. </p>
  75. <p>Another way to use agent expressions is for tracepoint data
  76. collection. <small>GDB</small> generates a different bytecode sequence for
  77. collection; in addition to bytecodes that do the calculation,
  78. <small>GDB</small> adds <code>trace</code> bytecodes to save the pieces of
  79. memory that were used.
  80. </p>
  81. <ul>
  82. <li> The user selects trace points in the program&rsquo;s code at which GDB should
  83. collect data.
  84. </li><li> The user specifies expressions to evaluate at each trace point. These
  85. expressions may denote objects in memory, in which case those objects&rsquo;
  86. contents are recorded as the program runs, or computed values, in which
  87. case the values themselves are recorded.
  88. </li><li> GDB transmits the tracepoints and their associated expressions to the
  89. GDB agent, running on the debugging target.
  90. </li><li> The agent arranges to be notified when a trace point is hit.
  91. </li><li> When execution on the target reaches a trace point, the agent evaluates
  92. the expressions associated with that trace point, and records the
  93. resulting values and memory ranges.
  94. </li><li> Later, when the user selects a given trace event and inspects the
  95. objects and expression values recorded, GDB talks to the agent to
  96. retrieve recorded data as necessary to meet the user&rsquo;s requests. If the
  97. user asks to see an object whose contents have not been recorded, GDB
  98. reports an error.
  99. </li></ul>
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