Keyword Index

Using the WDB GUI

Reference Information

Troubleshooting

Using Help

	What Is WDB GUI?
	New Features in Version 5.5.2
	Features in Previous Versions
	Supported Features
	About HP WDB

What Is WDB GUI?

Using the WDB GUI, you can view your source code and the corresponding assembly code, edit breakpoints, watch local and global variables, traverse the call stack, modify how signals are handled, view registers, and switch between threads in your program. You can enter WDB commands directly in the command view. You can also save your debug session and later restore it.

The WDB GUI is comparable to PC-based debuggers, using its similar look, feel, and navigation. In a multi-platform world, this tool helps you to provide a seamless transition between your PC development tools and the HP WDB debugger. 

New Features in Version 5.5.2

• This version of HP WDB GUI supports the following features:
• Support for display of memory layout for a given address

  WDB-GUI displays memory contents for a given address. This option is available from the View menu. The contents can be viewed in decimal, hexadecimal, octal, unsigned decimal, binary, float, address, instruction, character and, string format. For a given display format, the contents can be viewed in byte, halfword and word sizes.

• Support for display of a short description for an assembly instruction

  WDB-GUI displays a brief description of the assembly instruction, when the mouse pointer is hovered over an assembly instruction in the Disassembly view. For more information on using this feature, see the HP WDB GUI Reference Manual.

• Special key strokes for minimizing and maximizing WDB GUI windows:

  WDB-GUI window can be minimized and maximized with the following hot key combination:

  Key Combination	Function
  Control + Shift + <	Minimizes WDB-GUI window
  Control + Shift + >	Maximizes WDB-GUI window

• Support for heap check string on/off:

  WDB GUI supports the heap-check string on/off feature of GDB. If the check string flag is set to on, it enables the validation of calls to functions such as strcpy, strncpy, memcpy, memncpy, memmove, memset, bzero and bcopy. The heap-check string on/off option is available from Tools --> Memory Check. When the check string is turned on, memory warnings if any, will be displayed in the command window of WDB GUI.

Features in Previous Versions

(From 3.0 to 5.5.2 on PA-RISC; from 1.4.01 to 5.5.2 on Itanium)

• Support for shared library status:

  This feature lists all the libraries loaded by a program that is being debugged. This feature is based on the GDB command info shared. The following information is displayed:

  • Library Name
  • Library Status
  • Text segment Start/End
  • Data segment Start/End
  
  
  

• Support for display of current program information:

  WDB GUI displays the following information about the current program:

  • Program Name
  • Process ID
  • Arguments
  • Standard input/output, etc.
  
  
  
• Improved browser selection screen for viewing HP WDB GUI Online Help
  

  The browser preferences screen has been modified. The user can select either Netscape or Mozilla as the browser for viewing the HP WDB GUI Online Help. Toggle buttons have been placed on the browser selection screen for the two browsers supported. If the default browser (in this case Netscape) is not installed on the machine, then the user is prompted to select an alternative browser on the browser selection screen.

• Changed registers displayed in red
  

  The register view of the HP WDB GUI, is updated everytime the debugged program stops due to some event.

• Support for viewing array contents added to HP WDB GUI

  The user can view the values for part of an array by defining the limits. The array contents are displayed for specific limits only. However, by default the entire array is displayed.

• Support for specifying printing format in Watchview
  

  The values of the variables displayed in Watchview can be viewed in octal,hexadecimal, and decimal format.

• Support for the -mapshared option:
  WDB GUI 5.2 supports the -mapshared functionality. This option suppresses the mapping of all shared libraries in a process private. The -mapshared option can be given as a command-line option while invoking WDB GUI as:

  $ wdb -mapshared
  

  or in the gdb command prompt as:

  (gdb) set mapshared on
  

  To allow shared libraries to be loaded after the current point to be mapped private:

  (gdb) set mapshared off
  

• Enhanced Threadview:
  The threadview support has been enhanced to mark the last-event thread. This feature does the bookkeeping for the thread that was running before a ttrace event, which stopped the process being debugged. In cases when both the current thread and last-event thread are the same, only the current thread is flagged.
• Enhanced Registers View :
  WDB GUI register view has been enhanced to show double precision floating-point register values. For example :

  Single precision registers - fr7L = 26.1749401            fr7R = 0
  Double precision register  - fr7 = 1.5000000000000016
               
  

• Enhanced support for debugging TUI based applications :
  WDB GUI supports a new command-line option -tui to support debugging terminal user interface based applications (for example vim).

• Save To File option:
  The Save to File option is used to save the contents of debugger stateview to the file specified. Right click on the debugger stateview, to save the view contents, to a file.

• Customized display of Program Console: WDB-GUI supports a command line option -d to customize WDB GUI Program Console display to a display specified .
• Enhanced Dwell feature: The Dwell feature has been enhanced to display large data.
• Enhanced Source View: WDB GUI will be consistent in displaying source files in the Source View for FORTRAN applications.
• No dwelling on Code comments WDB GUI is now able to distinguish Code comments and will not show the value when dwelled on it.
• Support for WDB's Pathmap functionality: WDB GUI supports HP WDB debugger's Pathmap functionality. The Pathmap 'From' and 'To' dialog box lets you define a list of substitution rules to be applied to path names to identify object files and the corresponding source files. In this dialog box, you can add, delete, and change the priority order of pathmap. You can access the Pathmap dialog box from the Edit menu by clicking Pathmap. Alternately, you may also set the pathmap from WDB GUI's command view. 
• Setting Object File Paths: This feature allows the user to set object file paths so that WDB GUI may locate object files for the current program. The user may enter object file paths either via WDB GUI's command view or via the Object File Paths Dialog box. The Object File Paths dialog box may be accessed on the Edit menu by clicking Object File Paths.
• Support for Alternate Root Functionality: WDB GUI supports HP WDB debugger's Alternate root path functionality. The Alternate Root Path functionality enables the user to install HP WDB debugger and its components on an alternate root rather than the system default root. HP WDB provides an environment variable, GDB_ROOT for this purpose. WDB GUI facilitates the setting of this environment variable. If GDB_ROOT is not set and the environment variable WDB_ROOT is set, WDB GUI would set GDB_ROOT to the WDB_ROOT value. If GDB_ROOT is set, the value is left as such.
• Memory Log: The Memory Usage view reports data that the debugger collects on your program's memory leaks and heap use. The Memory Log feature enables you to save these reports to a file on the disk.
• Enable/Disable thread : While debugging a multi-threaded application, if you suspect that a specific thread is causing a problem, suspend other threads in the debugger and debug the doubtful thread. This feature in WDB GUI enables you to disable and enable specific threads.
• Support for Debugging PA-RISC Applications on Itanium-based Systems: This feature allows the user to transparently debug PA-RISC applications and core files on Itanium-based systems in compatibility mode under Aries. When a executable is loaded and if the debug target is a PA-RISC binary then WDB GUI automatically changes the debugger flavor to PA-RISC version of HP WDB.
• Memory checking: This feature in WDB GUI will enable the user to check for and report heap use, memory leaks and memory use errors. The Memory Usage view reports data that the debugger collects on your program's memory leaks and heap use. You must enable leak and memory use data collection prior to running your program.
• Support for the steplast command: The new command, "steplast", allows users to step into a function call directly without stepping into the arguments evaluation function calls. The "steplast" support is currently provided for C language only. 
• Shell commands : WDB GUI provides a separate popup terminal window for the user  to execute shell commands. Typing exit in the popup window, will close the popup window  and return the prompt to WDB GUI. If no TERM value is specified, xterm is taken for popup by default.
• Hexadecimal display in Dwell : This feature allows you to view the hexadecimal values of the variables. When you dwell on a variable its value is displayed in decimal and hexadecimal format s as a tooltip in the sourceview of the WDB GUI. If  you desire to view onl y decimal values, you can disable hexadecimal display by setting the preference in "Display in decimal & hexadecimal format with dwell feature" checkbox thr ough Edit > Preference menu. 
• WDB GUI allows you to configure the number of string characters or array elements to be displayed in the LocalVariables/Watch/ QuickWatch views. Lower values can mean less memory is consumed while displaying large data structures. The default value is 200. You can set the value to a number between 0 and 1700 in the "Maximum Array Elements to be printed" text box using Edit > Preferences menu. However, to optimize memory consumption of WDB GUI, it is recommended that you keep this number as small as needed for your debugging session .

Supported Features

• Creating Buttons Dynamically: This feature provides the user the ability to create buttons dynamically from within the WDB GUI. All operations that are valid at the debugger prompt (gdb) can be associated with a button. This dynamically created buttons list can also be saved and restored across GUI sessions.
• The Print debugger command has now been added in the source popup menu. You can mask any variable and right click (click M2) on this source popup menu item, to get the value of the highlighted variable in the Command view.
• Enhanced Array Browsing: This feature lets you view the entire contents of an expandable expression, with a single click on the expression's name, in the Name field of the Local Variables /Watch views. The expandable expression can be an array, structure, union or a Class. The whole content of the expandable data structure can be listed by, clicking on the plus sign (+) available to the left of the data structure's name, or by double clicking the Name field on the line. To collapse the whole expansion, click on the minus sign (-) or double click on the line again.The Quick Watch view, by default will show the entire contents of the expandable data structure,if this option is set. To set this option, check the "Enhanced Array Browsing" check box in the Edit->Preferences dialog box. If this option is not set, a single click on the expression's name will expand the expression to the next level.

  Note: There is a limitation that if the expression is of pointer data type, it will be expanded to the next level only.

• Saving Commandline History: This feature provides the ability to save  commandline history across WDB GUI sessions. You also have an option of saving and restoring the sequence of commands in the GUI commandline, along with the other session contents, while using the 'Save/Restore Session'. 
• Function browsing: Visit the source for a function by clicking on the function name. Choose from a list of functions that match a given regular expression.
• Automatic update of source search path when breakpoint is set: WDB GUI will automatically update the source search path when a breakpoint is set in a file which is not in the search path.This can be set by checking the "Automatically Update Search Path when breakpoints set" check box in the Debugger Preferences.
• Point and click breakpoints and breakpoint editing. Click M1 to the left of the Source view or Disassembly view to set or delete a breakpoint. Click M2 on a breakpoint symbol to bring up a dialog that lets you modify that breakpoint's attributes. See Using Breakpoints for details
• xterm, dtterm, hpterm are supported as program console
• Debugging an executable file or a core file produced by an aborted program
• Attaching to a process that is already running
• Viewing a source file and the corresponding assembly code
• Searching for specific text and regular expressions in several views
• Setting breakpoints and stepping through your program
• Viewing and modifying the values of local and global variables
• Viewing hardware registers
• Traversing the call stack
• Viewing and controlling signal handling
• Traversing threads
• Sending commands directly to WDB using a command line
• Accessing a history of commands you have executed during the current debug session
• Customizing the appearance and behavior of the debugger GUI
• Saving and restoring debugger sessions

The WDB GUI (on Itanium) does NOT support the following features:

• Fix and continue: Edit sources and have the debugger compile and patch in the changes without restarting the debugged program.
• Steplast support for C and C++: In general, if a function call has arguments which makes further function calls, a simple "step" command will step into argument evaluation call. This new feature, "steplast", will step into a function but not into the calls for evaluating arguments.

About HP WDB

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