Lua GDB Helpers

This is a collection of several GDB macros that simplify debugging of C modules for Lua. Lua has to be compiled with debugging symbols, or the appropriate "dbg" package (i.e. liblua5.1-0-dbg in Debian/Ubuntu) needs to be installed.

Installation & Running

Copy the luagdb.txt file somewhere - installation complete.

To include the macros into your GDB session, run the following command:

source <path to luagdb.txt>

It is advisable to include the line into your ~/.gdbinit file (see the GDB documentation), so you do not have to type the command everytime you start GDB.

Reference

• luastack [L] - lists the values on the current Lua C stack. By default, uses the current variable L as the lua_State pointer, however, an alternate lua_State can be provided as the first argument if needed.

• luaprint < value > [verbose] - Pretty-prints a TValue passed as argument. Expects a pointer to a TValue. When verbose is 1, expands tables, metatables and userdata environments.

• luaprinttable < table > - Pretty-prints a Lua Table. Expects a pointer to Table.

• luavalue < index > [L] - Provides a pointer to a TValue from a stack index. By default, uses the current variable L as a lua_State pointer, but can be specified as the second argument. The return value is passed in variable $obj.

However, note that "pretty-printing" is not as pretty as it could be. First, the hash part is displayed, then the array part. Entries in hash part are separated by newlines, the ones in array part are displayed side-by-side.

License

Copyright (c) 2010 Michal Kottman, MIT License