23.3.2.26 Program Spaces In Python

A program space, or progspace, represents a symbolic view of an address space. It consists of all of the objfiles of the program. See Objfiles In Python. See program spaces, for more details about program spaces.

The following progspace-related functions are available in the gdb module:

Function: gdb.current_progspace ()

This function returns the program space of the currently selected inferior. See Inferiors Connections and Programs. This is identical to gdb.selected_inferior().progspace (see Inferiors In Python) and is included for historical compatibility.

Function: gdb.progspaces ()

Return a sequence of all the progspaces currently known to GDB.

Each progspace is represented by an instance of the gdb.Progspace class.

Variable: Progspace.filename

The file name, as a string, of the main symbol file (from which debug symbols have been loaded) for the progspace, e.g. the argument to the symbol-file or file commands.

If there is no main symbol table currently loaded, then this attribute will be None.

Variable: Progspace.symbol_file

The gdb.Objfile representing the main symbol file (from which debug symbols have been loaded) for the gdb.Progspace. This is the symbol file set by the symbol-file or file commands.

This will be the gdb.Objfile representing Progspace.filename when Progspace.filename is not None.

If there is no main symbol table currently loaded, then this attribute will be None.

If the Progspace is invalid, i.e., when Progspace.is_valid() returns False, then attempting to access this attribute will raise a RuntimeError exception.

Variable: Progspace.executable_filename

The file name, as a string, of the executable file in use by this program space. The executable file is the file that GDB will invoke in order to start an inferior when using a native target. The file name within this attribute is updated by the exec-file and file commands.

If no executable is currently set within this Progspace then this attribute contains None.

If the Progspace is invalid, i.e., when Progspace.is_valid() returns False, then attempting to access this attribute will raise a RuntimeError exception.

Variable: Progspace.pretty_printers

The pretty_printers attribute is a list of functions. It is used to look up pretty-printers. A Value is passed to each function in order; if the function returns None, then the search continues. Otherwise, the return value should be an object which is used to format the value. See Pretty Printing API, for more information.

Variable: Progspace.type_printers

The type_printers attribute is a list of type printer objects. See Type Printing API, for more information.

Variable: Progspace.frame_filters

The frame_filters attribute is a dictionary of frame filter objects. See Frame Filter API, for more information.

Variable: Progspace.missing_debug_handlers

The missing_debug_handlers attribute is a list of the missing debug handler objects for this program space. See Missing Debug Info In Python, for more information.

A program space has the following methods:

Function: Progspace.block_for_pc (pc)

Return the innermost gdb.Block containing the given pc value. If the block cannot be found for the pc value specified, the function will return None.

Function: Progspace.find_pc_line (pc)

Return the gdb.Symtab_and_line object corresponding to the pc value. See Symbol Tables In Python. If an invalid value of pc is passed as an argument, then the symtab and line attributes of the returned gdb.Symtab_and_line object will be None and 0 respectively.

Function: Progspace.is_valid ()

Returns True if the gdb.Progspace object is valid, False if not. A gdb.Progspace object can become invalid if the program space file it refers to is not referenced by any inferior. All other gdb.Progspace methods will throw an exception if it is invalid at the time the method is called.

Function: Progspace.objfiles ()

Return a sequence of all the objfiles referenced by this program space. See Objfiles In Python.

Function: Progspace.solib_name (address)

Return the name of the shared library holding the given address as a string, or None.

Function: Progspace.objfile_for_address (address)

Return the gdb.Objfile holding the given address, or None if no objfile covers it.

One may add arbitrary attributes to gdb.Progspace objects in the usual Python way. This is useful if, for example, one needs to do some extra record keeping associated with the program space.

See choosing attribute names, for guidance on selecting a suitable name for new attributes.

In this contrived example, we want to perform some processing when an objfile with a certain symbol is loaded, but we only want to do this once because it is expensive. To achieve this we record the results with the program space because we can’t predict when the desired objfile will be loaded.

(gdb) python

def clear_objfiles_handler(event):
    event.progspace.expensive_computation = None
def expensive(symbol):
    """A mock routine to perform an "expensive" computation on symbol."""
    print ("Computing the answer to the ultimate question ...")
    return 42

def new_objfile_handler(event):
    objfile = event.new_objfile
    progspace = objfile.progspace
    if not hasattr(progspace, 'expensive_computation') or \
            progspace.expensive_computation is None:
        # We use 'main' for the symbol to keep the example simple.
        # Note: There's no current way to constrain the lookup
        # to one objfile.
        symbol = gdb.lookup_global_symbol('main')
        if symbol is not None:
            progspace.expensive_computation = expensive(symbol)
gdb.events.clear_objfiles.connect(clear_objfiles_handler)
gdb.events.new_objfile.connect(new_objfile_handler)
end

(gdb) file /tmp/hello
Reading symbols from /tmp/hello...
Computing the answer to the ultimate question ...
(gdb) python print(gdb.current_progspace().expensive_computation)
42
(gdb) run
Starting program: /tmp/hello
Hello.
[Inferior 1 (process 4242) exited normally]