gdb: disassembler opcode display formatting
This commit changes the format of 'disassemble /r' to match GNU
objdump. Specifically, GDB will now display the instruction bytes in
as 'objdump --wide --disassemble' does.
Here is an example for RISC-V before this patch:
(gdb) disassemble /r 0x0001018e,0x0001019e
Dump of assembler code from 0x1018e to 0x1019e:
0x0001018e <call_me+66>: 03 26 84 fe lw a2,-24(s0)
0x00010192 <call_me+70>: 83 25 c4 fe lw a1,-20(s0)
0x00010196 <call_me+74>: 61 65 lui a0,0x18
0x00010198 <call_me+76>: 13 05 85 6a addi a0,a0,1704
0x0001019c <call_me+80>: f1 22 jal 0x10368 <printf>
End of assembler dump.
And here's an example after this patch:
(gdb) disassemble /r 0x0001018e,0x0001019e
Dump of assembler code from 0x1018e to 0x1019e:
0x0001018e <call_me+66>:
fe842603 lw a2,-24(s0)
0x00010192 <call_me+70>:
fec42583 lw a1,-20(s0)
0x00010196 <call_me+74>: 6561 lui a0,0x18
0x00010198 <call_me+76>:
6a850513 addi a0,a0,1704
0x0001019c <call_me+80>: 22f1 jal 0x10368 <printf>
End of assembler dump.
There are two differences here. First, the instruction bytes after
the patch are grouped based on the size of the instruction, and are
byte-swapped to little-endian order.
Second, after the patch, GDB now uses the bytes-per-line hint from
libopcodes to add whitespace padding after the opcode bytes, this
means that in most cases the instructions are nicely aligned.
It is still possible for a very long instruction to intrude into the
disassembled text space. The next example is x86-64, before the
patch:
(gdb) disassemble /r main
Dump of assembler code for function main:
0x0000000000401106 <+0>: 55 push %rbp
0x0000000000401107 <+1>: 48 89 e5 mov %rsp,%rbp
0x000000000040110a <+4>: c7 87 d8 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 movl $0x1,0xd8(%rdi)
0x0000000000401114 <+14>: b8 00 00 00 00 mov $0x0,%eax
0x0000000000401119 <+19>: 5d pop %rbp
0x000000000040111a <+20>: c3 ret
End of assembler dump.
And after the patch:
(gdb) disassemble /r main
Dump of assembler code for function main:
0x0000000000401106 <+0>: 55 push %rbp
0x0000000000401107 <+1>: 48 89 e5 mov %rsp,%rbp
0x000000000040110a <+4>: c7 87 d8 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 movl $0x1,0xd8(%rdi)
0x0000000000401114 <+14>: b8 00 00 00 00 mov $0x0,%eax
0x0000000000401119 <+19>: 5d pop %rbp
0x000000000040111a <+20>: c3 ret
End of assembler dump.
Most instructions are aligned, except for the very long instruction.
Notice too that for x86-64 libopcodes doesn't request that GDB group
the instruction bytes. This matches the behaviour of objdump.
In case the user really wants the old behaviour, I have added a new
modifier 'disassemble /b', this displays the instruction byte at a
time. For x86-64, which never groups instruction bytes, /b and /r are
equivalent, but for RISC-V, using /b gets the old layout back (except
that the whitespace for alignment is still present). Consider our
original RISC-V example, this time using /b:
(gdb) disassemble /b 0x0001018e,0x0001019e
Dump of assembler code from 0x1018e to 0x1019e:
0x0001018e <call_me+66>: 03 26 84 fe lw a2,-24(s0)
0x00010192 <call_me+70>: 83 25 c4 fe lw a1,-20(s0)
0x00010196 <call_me+74>: 61 65 lui a0,0x18
0x00010198 <call_me+76>: 13 05 85 6a addi a0,a0,1704
0x0001019c <call_me+80>: f1 22 jal 0x10368 <printf>
End of assembler dump.
Obviously, this patch is a potentially significant change to the
behaviour or /r. I could have added /b with the new behaviour and
left /r alone. However, personally, I feel the new behaviour is
significantly better than the old, hence, I made /r be what I consider
the "better" behaviour.
The reason I prefer the new behaviour is that, when I use /r, I almost
always want to manually decode the instruction for some reason, and
having the bytes displayed in "instruction order" rather than memory
order, just makes this easier.
The 'record instruction-history' command also takes a /r modifier, and
has been modified in the same way as disassemble; /r gets the new
behaviour, and /b has been added to retain the old behaviour.
Finally, the MI command -data-disassemble, is unchanged in behaviour,
this command now requests the raw bytes of the instruction, which is
equivalent to the /b modifier. This means that the MI output will
remain backward compatible.