README

GDB (the GNU Debugger http://sourceware.org/gdb/) Pretty Printers for Boost

Since version 7.0 GDB has Python scripting support. This can be used to provide "Pretty Printers" to make the output of GDB more usable. The libstdc++ project currently provides a set of pretty printers for their implementation of the C++ standard library. This projects goal is to provide a similar set of pretty printers for the Boost library.

(Help is appreciated!)

See supported.txt for supported classes.

* Installation:

GDB version 7 or better is required!

Check out the git repository
  git clone git://github.com/ruediger/Boost-Pretty-Printer.git

and add the following lines to your ~/.gdbinit

python
import sys
sys.path.insert(0, 'PATH-TO-THE-REPO/Boost-Pretty-Printer')
from boost.v1_40.printers import register_boost_printers
register_boost_printers(None)
end

and of course replace PATH-TO-THE-REPO with the absolute path to the Boost Pretty Printer repository. If you have no ~/.gdbinit file just create it.

Now you can simply use GDB's print (short p) statement to pretty print the supported boost objects.

* Example
  $ cat > foo.c++
  #include <boost/range/iterator_range.hpp>
  using namespace boost;

  int main() {
    char buf[] = "Hello World";
    iterator_range<char const*> range(buf, buf + sizeof(buf));

    return range[0];
  }
  ^D
  $ g++ -g3 foo.c++
  $ gdb -q a.out
  Reading symbols from /home/ruediger/develop/demos/a.out...done.
  (gdb) break 7
  Breakpoint 1 at 0x4006cb: file /home/ruediger/develop/demos/foo.c++, line 7.
  (gdb) run
  Starting program: /home/ruediger/develop/demos/a.out

  Breakpoint 1, main () at /home/ruediger/develop/demos/foo.c++:8
  8         return range[0];
  (gdb) p range
  $1 = boost::iterator_range<char const*> of length 12 = {72 'H', 101 'e', 108 'l', 108 'l', 111 'o', 32 ' ', 87 'W', 111 'o', 114 'r', 108 'l', 100 'd', 0 '\000'}