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1 Debugging GNU Emacs
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2 Copyright (c) 1985, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
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3
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4 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
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5 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
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6 copyright notice and permission notice are preserved,
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7 and that the distributor grants the recipient permission
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8 for further redistribution as permitted by this notice.
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9
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10 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
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11 of this document, or of portions of it,
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12 under the above conditions, provided also that they
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13 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
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14
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15 ** Some useful techniques
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16
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17 `Fsignal' is a very useful place to stop in.
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18 All Lisp errors go through there.
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19
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20 It is useful, when debugging, to have a guaranteed way
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21 to return to the debugger at any time. If you are using
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22 interrupt-driven input, which is the default, then Emacs is using
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23 RAW mode and the only way you can do it is to store
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24 the code for some character into the variable stop_character:
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25
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26 set stop_character = 29
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27
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28 makes Control-] (decimal code 29) the stop character.
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29 Typing Control-] will cause immediate stop. You cannot
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30 use the set command until the inferior process has been started.
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31 Put a breakpoint early in `main', or suspend the Emacs,
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32 to get an opportunity to do the set command.
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33
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34 If you are using cbreak input (see the Lisp function set-input-mode),
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35 then typing Control-g will cause a SIGINT, which will return control
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36 to GDB immediately if you type this command first:
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37
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38 handle 2 stop
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39
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40
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41 ** Examining Lisp object values.
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42
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43 When you have a live process to debug, and it has not encountered a
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44 fatal error, you can use the GDB command `pr'. First print the value
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45 in the ordinary way, with the `p' command. Then type `pr' with no
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46 arguments. This calls a subroutine which uses the Lisp printer.
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47
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48 If you can't use this command, either because the process can't run
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49 a subroutine or because the data is invalid, you can fall back on
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50 lower-level commands.
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51
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52 Use the `xtype' command to print out the data type of the last data
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53 value. Once you know the data type, use the command that corresponds
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54 to that type. Here are these commands:
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55
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56 xint xptr xwindow xmarker xoverlay xmiscfree xintfwd xboolfwd xobjfwd
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57 xbufobjfwd xkbobjfwd xbuflocal xbuffer xsymbol xstring xvector xframe
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58 xwinconfig xcompiled xcons xcar xcdr xsubr xprocess xfloat xscrollbar
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59
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60 Each one of them applies to a certain type or class of types.
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61 (Some of these types are not visible in Lisp, because they exist only
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62 internally.)
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63
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64 Each x... command prints some information about the value, and
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65 produces a GDB value (subsequently available in $) through which you
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66 can get at the rest of the contents.
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67
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68 In general, most of the rest of the contents will be addition Lisp
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69 objects which you can examine in turn with the x... commands.
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70
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71 ** If GDB does not run and your debuggers can't load Emacs.
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72
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73 On some systems, no debugger can load Emacs with a symbol table,
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74 perhaps because they all have fixed limits on the number of symbols
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75 and Emacs exceeds the limits. Here is a method that can be used
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76 in such an extremity. Do
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77
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78 nm -n temacs > nmout
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79 strip temacs
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80 adb temacs
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81 0xd:i
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82 0xe:i
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83 14:i
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84 17:i
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85 :r -l loadup (or whatever)
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86
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87 It is necessary to refer to the file `nmout' to convert
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88 numeric addresses into symbols and vice versa.
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89
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90 It is useful to be running under a window system.
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91 Then, if Emacs becomes hopelessly wedged, you can create
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92 another window to do kill -9 in. kill -ILL is often
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93 useful too, since that may make Emacs dump core or return
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94 to adb.
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95
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96
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97 ** Debugging incorrect screen updating.
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98
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99 To debug Emacs problems that update the screen wrong, it is useful
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100 to have a record of what input you typed and what Emacs sent to the
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101 screen. To make these records, do
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102
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103 (open-dribble-file "~/.dribble")
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104 (open-termscript "~/.termscript")
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105
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106 The dribble file contains all characters read by Emacs from the
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107 terminal, and the termscript file contains all characters it sent to
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108 the terminal. The use of the directory `~/' prevents interference
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109 with any other user.
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110
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111 If you have irreproducible display problems, put those two expressions
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112 in your ~/.emacs file. When the problem happens, exit the Emacs that
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113 you were running, kill it, and rename the two files. Then you can start
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114 another Emacs without clobbering those files, and use it to examine them.
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