Debugger Scripting Ideas

Much like WinDBG supports JavaScript Debugger Scripting, LLDB supports the LLDB API to control and extend the debugger.

What are some things you could write with this? Here is a list of things to get you inspired.

• Scrape data to file.
• More sophisticated visualizations with external programs.
• Traversing data structures.
• Summarizing state.
• Looking for inconsistencies.
• Examining large amounts of data.
• Tables, tables, tables. Anything that you can present in a more digestible format.
• Trees, tress, trees. Again, an areas where the right visualization helps a lot.
• Examining symbols.
• Fixing debugger state.
• Adapting to multiple versions.

You might also look at my older posts on post-mortem debugging, and how to use globals and logging wisely to help with that.

Python specifics

I have a page on Python with references to many of my most-used packages, but importantly you'll often want to see what the Python installation that LLDB is using looks like.

To see that, start LLDB and run these commands.

script import sys
script sys.version
script sys.path


Happy debugging!

Tags:  debugging lldb python

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