GDB - GUI

There are plenty of Front Ends you can use to debug your code. Here we will only talk about TUI which is built-in GDB. To see more options you can check out this website.

TUI

The GDB Text User Interface (TUI) is a terminal interface which can be used to show the source file, the assembly output, the program registers and GDB commands in separate text windows. The TUI mode is enabled by default when you invoke GDB as gdb -tui. You can also switch in and out of TUI mode using tui enable or the keyboard shortcuts CTRL+x CTRL+a.

TUI behaves the same way as the normal mode. Although it has some specific commands that can be useful

TUI specific commands

Command	Description
layout next	Display the next layout.
layout prev	Display the previous layout.
layout src	Display the source window only.
layout asm	Display the assembly window only.
layout split	Display the source and assembly window.
layout regs	Display the register window together with the source or assembly window.
focus next, prev, src, asm, regs, split	Set the focus to the named window. This command allows changing the active window so that scrolling keys can be affected by another window.
refresh	Refresh the screen. This is similar to using C-L key.
update	Update the source window and the current execution point.
winheight name +count	Increase the height of the window name by count lines.
winheight name -count	Decrease the height of the window name by count lines.

Example

Hello World program:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    int a = 0;
    a = 2;  
    printf("%s\n", "Hello World");
    return 0;
}

Compile and run:

$ gcc -g hello.c
$ ./a.out
Hello World

Start GDB:

$ gdb -tui ./a.out

You will see that you have the same GDB layout with the prompt but now you also have a big rectangle at the top. This is where all the information will be shown, for example, the source code or the executable disassembled. To show the source code you can run the following command:

(gdb) layout src

Let's create a breakpoint at lines 4, 5 and 6:

(gdb) b hello.c:4
(gdb) b hello.c:5
(gdb) b hello.c:6

Now at the source code will appear b+ in lines 4, 5 and 6.

Run:

(gdb) run
(gdb) p a
(gdb) c
(gdb) p a
(gdb) c

Everything works as expected, and now we have a graphical interface that helps us making the debug more visual. Let's continue the execution:

(gdb) layout next

This will show the assembly code of our example from the current breakpoint. This can be a little bit overwhelming, but if you look carefully to the line after the current you will see that the program will call the "puts" function callq 0x8001050 <puts@plt>x,1). Which makes sense since our current breakpoint is supposed to be the "printf" and if we run layout src we can confirm that.