Android NDK Debug

Posted 2022-12-05 oncealong

前言：说真的android NDK debug还是推荐lldb，gdb经常莫名其妙的不成功。不过下面的这个流程是谷歌官方建议的，还是有参考价值的。尤其是在App启动时Debug的流程。

lldb debug的文章推荐: https://fucknmb.com/2019/12/06/Flutter-Engine-C-%E6%BA%90%E7%A0%81%E8%B0%83%E8%AF%95%E5%88%9D%E6%8E%A2/

 

1. Debugging app startup

Sometimes you want to debug an app as it starts, such as when there's a crash and you want to step through code to see what happened before the crash. Attaching works in some cases, but in other cases is impossible because the app crashes before you can attach. The logwrapper approach (used for strace) doesn't always work because the app might not have permissions to open a port, and gdbserver inherits that restriction.

To debug app startup, use the developer options in Settings to instruct the app to wait for a Java debugger to attach:

1. Go to Settings > Developer options > Select debug app and choose your app from the list, then click Wait for debugger.
2. Start the app, either from the launcher or by using the command line to run:

   adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n APP_NAME/.APP_ACTIVITY
   

    

3. Wait for the app to load and a dialog to appear telling you the app is waiting for a debugger.
4. Attach gdbserver/gdbclient normally, set breakpoints, then continue the process.

To let the app run, attach a Java Debug Wire Protocol (JDWP) debugger such as Java Debugger (jdb):

adb forward tcp:12345 jdwp:XXX  # (Where XXX is the PID
of the debugged process.)
jdb -attach localhost:12345

 

2. Debugging apps or processes that crash

If you want debuggerd to suspend crashed processes so that you can attach gdb, set the appropriate property:

• Android 7.0 Nougat and higher

  adb shell setprop debug.debuggerd.wait_for_gdb true
  

   

• Android 6.0 Marshmallow and lower

  adb shell setprop debug.db.uid 999999
  

   

At the end of the usual crash output, debuggerd provides instructions on how to connect gdb using the command:

gdbclient.py -p PID

 

3. Debugging without symbols

For 32-bit ARM, if you don’t have symbols, gdb can't determine which instruction set it's disassembling (ARM or Thumb). To specify the instruction set chosen as the default when symbol information is missing, set the following property:

set arm fallback-mode arm  # or thumb

 

4. Debugging with VS Code

GDB supports debugging platform code on Visual Studio Code. You can use the VS Code debugger frontend instead of the GDB CLI interface to control and debug native code running on devices.

Before using VS Code for debugging, install the C/C++ extension.

To debug code using VS Code:

1. Ensure that all build artifacts (such as symbols) required to run gdbclient.py are present.
2. Run the following command:

   gdbclient.py -p pid | -n proc-name |
   -r ... --setup-forwarding vscode ANY_OTHER_FLAGS

    

   This prints a JSON object and gdbclient.py continues running. This is expected; don't kill the gdbclient.py program.

3. In the debugging tab in VS Code, select add configuration, then select C/C++ gdb attach. This opens a launch.json file and adds a new JSON object to a list.
4. Delete the newly added debugger configuration.
5. Copy the JSON object printed by gdbclient.py and paste it into the object you just deleted. Save the changes.
6. To reload the window to refresh the debugger list, press Ctrl+Shift+P and type reload window.
7. Select the new debugger configuration and press run. The debugger should connect after 10 to 30 seconds.
8. When you're done debugging, go to the terminal running gdbclient.py and press Enter to end the gdbclient.py program.

After setting up the debugger configuration for the first time, you can skip steps 3 through 6.

 

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https://source.android.com/devices/tech/debug/gdb