gdb: use try/catch around a gdb_disassembler::print_insn call
While investigating some disassembler problems I ran into this case;
GDB compiled on a 32-bit arm target, with --enable-targets=all. Then
in GDB:
(gdb) set architecture i386
(gdb) disassemble 0x0,+4
unknown disassembler error (error = -1)
This is interesting because it shows a case where the libopcodes
disassembler is returning -1 without first calling the
memory_error_func callback. Indeed, the return from libopcodes
happens from this code snippet in i386-dis.c in the print_insn
function:
if (address_mode == mode_64bit && sizeof (bfd_vma) < 8)
{
(*info->fprintf_func) (info->stream,
_("64-bit address is disabled"));
return -1;
}
Notice how, prior to the return the disassembler tries to print a
helpful message out, but GDB doesn't print this message.
The reason this message goes missing is the call stack, it looks like
this:
gdb_pretty_print_disassembler::pretty_print_insn
gdb_disassembler::print_insn
gdbarch_print_insn
...
i386-dis.c:print_insn
When i386-dis.c:print_insn returns -1 this is handled in
gdb_disassembler::print_insn, where an exception is thrown. However,
the actual printing of the disassembler output is done in
gdb_pretty_print_disassembler::pretty_print_insn, and is only done if
an exception is not thrown.
In this commit I change this. The pretty_print_insn now uses
try/catch around the call to gdb_disassembler::print_insn, if we catch
an error then we first print any pending output in the instruction
buffer, before rethrowing the exception. As a result, even if an
exception is thrown we still print any pending disassembler output to
the screen; in the above case the helpful message will now be shown.
Before my patch we might expect to see this output:
(gdb) disassemble 0x0,+4
Dump of assembler code from 0x0 to 0x4:
0x0000000000000000: unknown disassembler error (error = -1)
(gdb)
But now we see this:
(gdb) disassemble 0x0,+4
Dump of assembler code from 0x0 to 0x4:
0x0000000000000000: 64-bit address is disabled
unknown disassembler error (error = -1)
If the disassembler returns -1 without printing a helpful message then
we would still expect a change in output, something like:
(gdb) disassemble 0x0,+4
Dump of assembler code from 0x0 to 0x4:
0x0000000000000000:
unknown disassembler error (error = -1)
Which I think is still acceptable, though at this point I think a
strong case can be made that this is a disassembler bug (not printing
anything, but still returning -1).
Notice however, that the error message is always printed on a new line
now. This is also true for the memory error case, where before we
might see this:
(gdb) disassemble 0x0,+4
Dump of assembler code from 0x0 to 0x4:
0x00000000: Cannot access memory at address 0x0
We now get this:
(gdb) disassemble 0x0,+4
Dump of assembler code from 0x0 to 0x4:
0x00000000:
Cannot access memory at address 0x0
For me, I'm happy to accept this change, having the error on a line by
itself, rather than just appended to the end of the previous line,
seems like an improvement, but I'm aware others might feel
differently, so I'd appreciate any feedback.