How to highlight and color gdb output during interactive debugging?

Question

Please don\'t reply I should use ffffd, nemiver, emacs, vim, or any other front-end, I just prefer gdb as it is, but would like to see its output with some terminal colors.

Answer 1

I wanted to highlight as follows: emphasise the lines of a stack trace which belong to my source files (rather than libraries).

The solution was to use gdb-python (on MSYS; on Linux typically gdb comes with Python built-in already?), hook backtrace, use

python stack_trace = gdb.execute('backtrace', False, True')

Then process stack_trace with Python's regexes, and print them out. Bold and other colours are achieved by a function like this:

def term_style(*v):
    """1 is bold, 30--37 are the 8 colours, but specifying bold may also
    change the colour. 40--47 are background colours."""
    return '\x1B['+';'.join(map(str, v))+'m'

#Use like this:
print term_style(1) + 'This will be bold' + term_style(0) #Reset.
print term_style(1,30) + 'This will be bold and coloured' + term_style(0)
print term_style(1,30,40) + 'Plus coloured background' + term_style(0)

Answer 2

cgdb is much better than gdb -tui

Answer 3

It's not colours, but consider gdb's text gui. It makes a vast difference to how usable gdb is.

You can launch it with:

gdb -tui executable.out

Screenshot:

As you can see, the main features are:

• shows what line of the source we are on and surrounding lines
• shows breakpoints

Answer 4

It is possible to greatly enhance the appears of gdb through the use of colors. This is done via any of the following methods:

1. Colorized prompt via the "set prompt". E.g., make the prompt bold and red:

   set prompt \033[1;31m(gdb) \033[m

   or make the prompt a new shape, bold and red:

   set prompt \033[01;31m\n\n#####################################> \033[0m

2. Colorized commands via hooks

3. Colorized syntax highlighting of the "list" command.

All examples are available at the following blog posts written by Michael Kelleher:

"Beautify GDB", May 12, 2010 (via archive.org)

"Experimental GDB syntax highlighting", May 15, 2010 (via archive.org)

Answer 5

I know you did not want a frontend. But how about cgdb it is very close to gdb, it is textmode but has a source window above with syntax highlight on the code.

Answer 6

#into .gdbinit
shell mkfifo /tmp/colorPipe

define hook-disassemble
echo \n
shell cat /tmp/colorPipe | c++filt | highlight --syntax=asm -s darkness -Oxterm256 &
set logging redirect on
set logging on /tmp/colorPipe
end 

define hookpost-disassemble
hookpost-list
end 

define hook-list
echo \n
shell cat /tmp/colorPipe | c++filt | highlight --syntax=cpp -s darkness -Oxterm256 &
set logging redirect on
set logging on /tmp/colorPipe
end 

define hookpost-list
set logging off 
set logging redirect off 
shell sleep 0.1s
end 

define hook-quit
shell rm /tmp/colorPipe
end 

define re
hookpost-disassemble
echo \033[0m
end 
document re
Restore colorscheme
end 

Warning: Buggy. No TUI support, 'user-mode' hack.

Found the main part here and modified it a bit. Needs highlight, c++filt. If colors get messed up issue re command.