Devel::GDB - Open and communicate a gdb session


Devel-GDB documentation Contained in the Devel-GDB distribution.

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NAME

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Devel::GDB - Open and communicate a gdb session

SYNOPSIS

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    use Devel::GDB;

    $gdb = new Devel::GDB();
    print $gdb->send_cmd('-environment-path');
    print $gdb->get('info functions');

The old get syntax (of Devel::GDB-1.23) has been deprecated and will not be supported in future versions. See the documentation of the get function for an explanation of why.

If you really want to use the old syntax, set $Devel::GDB::DEPRECATED to true:

    use Devel::GDB ;

    $Devel::GDB::DEPRECATED = 1;
    $gdb = new Devel::GDB();
    print $gdb->get('info functions', $timeout, $prompt, $notyet, $alldone);

DESCRIPTION

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The Devel::GDB package provides an interface for communicating with GDB. Internally, it uses the GDB/MI interpreter (see http://sourceware.org/gdb/current/onlinedocs/gdb_25.html), which accurately informs the caller of the program state and, through the use of tokens, guarantees that the results returned actually correspond to the request sent. By contrast, GDB's console interpreter returns all responses on STDOUT, and thus there is no way to ensure that a particular response corresponds to a particular request.

Therefore, it is obviously preferable to use GDB/MI when programmatically interacting with GDB. This can be done via the send_cmd family of functions (send_cmd, send_cmd_excl, and send_cmd_async). There are, however, some cases when there is no GDB/MI command corresponding to a particular console command, or it has not yet been implemented (for example, -symbol-type, corresponding to the console command ptype, is not yet implemented as of GDB 6.6). In this case, the get function provides a workaround by capturing all output sent to the console stream.

CONSTRUCTOR

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new

    $gdb = new Devel::GDB( '-use-threads' => 1 );
                           '-params'      => $extra_gdb_params );

Spawns a new GDB process. In threaded mode, this also spawns a listening thread that asynchronously processes responses from GDB; in non-threaded mode, the caller is responsible for handling asynchronous output (that is, output from GDB that is not directly solicited by a request). See demux, get_reader, and the Non-threaded Usage example for further discussion.

The parameters to the constructor are passed in hash form. The following parameters control how GDB is invoked:

-execfile

The GDB binary to execute; defaults to "gdb".

-params

Pass additional parameters to GDB. The value can be an array reference (preferred) or a string.

The following parameters control how to handle interaction with the inferior process, the program being debugged. The default behavior is to give the inferior process control of the terminal while it is running, returning control to perl when the program is suspended or stopped (emulating the behavior of gdb). However, this only works when STDIN is associated with a tty. Two other (mutually exclusive) options are available:

-use-tty

Specify the name of the tty that the inferior process should use for its I/O. Note that this is the path to a tty (e.g. "/dev/pts/123") and not an IO::Pty object. See the example Debugging Inside an XTerm.

-create-expect

If this value is non-zero, create an Expect object (which can be subsequently retrieved by calling get_expect_obj); this is useful if you want to programmatically interact with the inferior process. See the example Programmatically Interacting with the Inferior Process.

Miscellaneous parameters:

-use-threads

Operate in threaded (1) or non-threaded (0) mode. The default behavior is to enable threaded mode if the threads module has been loaded and disable it otherwise. Note that if -use-threads is enabled, the caller must call use threads, but -use-threads can be disabled whether or not threads has been loaded.

Threaded mode is the easiest to deal with, as it does not require the caller to interact with the GDB filehandles directly; for a simple non-threaded example, see the Non-threaded Usage example.

-readline-fn

Probably only useful in non-threaded mode, this lets the user specify a callback function $fn to be called when waiting for a response from GDB. It is invoked with one parameter, the Devel::GDB instance, and is expected to return one full line of output (or undef if EOF was reached). The default implementation uses buffered I/O:

    $fn = sub { return readline($_[0]->get_reader); }

Typically, in non-threaded mode, the caller will be using select to multiplex multiple file streams (e.g. STDIN and get_reader); in this case, you will likely want to specify a value for -readline-fn which, at a minimum, uses sysread rather than readline.

METHODS

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send_cmd
    $response = $gdb->send_cmd($command)

Send $command to GDB, and block until a response is received. In threaded mode, this does not prevent other threads from simultaneously sending requests.

The $command can be a GDB/MI command, prefixed with a hyphen (e.g. "-exec-run") or a console command ("run"). However, the response returned will always be a GDB/MI response, so $gdb->send_cmd("info variables") will only return "done"; the actual output you probably wanted will be dumped into the console stream. To execute console commands and capture the output sent back to the console, use get.

send_cmd_excl
    $gdb->send_cmd_excl($cmd, $before_fn, $after_fn)

Send $cmd to GDB in exclusive mode. In threaded mode, this means that other send_cmd and send_cmd_excl calls will not coincide with this call. In non-threaded mode, this ensures that any pending send_cmd_async calls are processed before proceeding.

If provided, the $before_fn and $after_fn functions will, respectively, be called before the command is sent (after the exclusive lock is aquired) and after the result has been received (before the exclusive lock is released).

send_cmd_async
    $gdb->send_cmd_excl($cmd, $callback_fn)

Not yet implemented.

Send $cmd to GDB in async mode. This returns immediately, rather than blocking until a response is received; instead, the $callback_fn callback function is called, with the response as the first argument.

This will likely only be supported in non-threaded mode.

get
    $gdb->get($command)

Issues the $command to GDB, and returns all output sent to the console output stream. Note that there is no way to ensure that the output "belongs" to a particular command, so it is possible that spurious output will be included! In particular, if you call $gdb->get($command) immediately after creating the Devel::GDB object, and don't suppress GDB's initialization messages (by passing -q to -params), some of these messages may end up in the response to get.

In list context, returns ($buffer, $error), with exactly one of the two defined; $buffer is the text captured from the console stream and $error is the GDB/MI error message. In scalar context, only $buffer is returned (undef if there was an error).

get (DEPRECATED)
    $gdb->get($command, $timeout, $prompt, $notyet, $alldone)

This version of get is used when $Devel::GDB::DEPRECATED is true, and provides backwards compatibility with older versions of Devel::GDB. It is not compatible with any of the new features (e.g. send_cmd, threaded mode) and will be removed in future versions.

This method is flawed in a number of ways: the semantics of when $notyet is called are unclear, the handling of $timeout is broken, and most importantly, the fact that it allows execution to be interrupted can put the module into an inconsistent state.

No new code should use this function.

get_expect_obj

Returns the Expect object created by -create-expect.

get_reader

Returns the filehandle from which to read GDB responses.

In non-threaded mode, the caller will need this filehandle in its -readline-fn; in addition, to support asynchronous GDB responses, the caller should pass lines read from this filehandle to demux.

demux
    $gdb->demux($line)

Process a line read from the GDB stream (see get_reader). This should only be called in non-threaded mode. (See example: Non-threaded Usage)

interrupt

Send SIGINT to the GDB session, interrupting the inferior process (if any).

end

Kills the GDB connection. You must call this to ensure that the GDB process is killed gracefully.

EXAMPLES

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Non-threaded Usage

    use Devel::GDB;
    use IO::BufferedSelect;

    my $gdb = new Devel::GDB( '-use-threads' => 0, 
                              '-readline-fn' => \&message_loop );

    my $gdb_fh = $gdb->get_reader;

    my $bs = new IO::BufferedSelect(\*STDIN, $gdb_fh);

    sub message_loop
    {
        my @result = $bs->read_line($gdb_fh);
        return @result ? $result[0][1] : undef;
    }

    OUTER:
    while(1)
    {
        my @ready = $bs->read_line();
        foreach( @ready )
        {
            my ($fh, $line) = @$_;
            defined($line) or last OUTER;
            chomp $line;

            if($fh == \*STDIN)
            {
                print STDERR "RECEIVED: $line\n";
                my $result = $gdb->get($line);
                last unless defined($result);
                print STDERR $result;
            }
            else
            {
                $gdb->demux($line);
            }
        }
    }

Programmatically Interacting with the Inferior Process

Here's a simple example that communicates with an inferior process (in this case, tr) using the Expect module.

    use strict;
    use warnings;
    use threads;
    use Devel::GDB;

    my $gdb = new Devel::GDB( '-create-expect' => 1 );
    my $e = $gdb->get_expect_obj;

    $gdb->send_cmd("file tr");
    $gdb->send_cmd("set args a-zA-Z A-Za-z");
    $gdb->send_cmd("-exec-run");

    $e->send("one TWO\n");
    $e->send("ONE two\n");

    $e->expect(undef, '-re', '^.+$')
        and $e->match =~ /^ONE two/
        and print "ok 1\n"
        or die;

    $e->expect(undef, '-re', '^.+$')
        and $e->match =~ /^one TWO/
        and print "ok 2\n"
        or die;

    $gdb->end;

    $e->slave->close;
    $e->expect(undef);
    printf "EXPECT(EOF): %s\n", $e->before;

Debugging Inside an XTerm

Here's an example that spawns an xterm and runs the inferior process inside it. Commands are read from STDIN, and responses written to STDERR.

    use strict;
    use warnings;
    use threads;
    use Devel::GDB;
    use IO::Pty;
    use POSIX;

    sub set_termios_lflag($$$)
    {
        my($fd, $flag, $value) = @_;
        my $termios = new POSIX::Termios;
        $termios->getattr($fd);
        $termios->setlflag($value ? ($termios->getlflag | $flag) : ($termios->getlflag & ~$flag));
        $termios->setattr($fd);
        undef $termios;
    }

    my $pty = new IO::Pty;

    # Disable echo temporarily
    set_termios_lflag(fileno($pty), &POSIX::ECHO, 0);

    # Fork an xterm
    unless(my $xterm_pid = fork)
    {
        die "Fork failed" unless defined($xterm_pid);

        # Reopen $fd with close-on-exec disabled
        my $fd  = fileno($pty);
        $^F = $fd > $^F ? $fd : $^F;
        local *MASTER;
        open(MASTER, "<&=$fd") and $fd == fileno(\*MASTER)
            or die "Failed reopening pty handle";

        my $cmd = "xterm -Sxx$fd";

        print "calling exec($cmd)\n";
        exec($cmd);
        die "exec() failed: $!";
    }

    # xterm likes to write its window id to the pty; eat it up
    # (echo is disabled so the inferior process doesn't see this output)
    my $window_id = readline($pty->slave);

    # Now turn echo back on
    set_termios_lflag(fileno($pty), &POSIX::ECHO, 1);

    # No longer need the master (but don't close the slave!)
    close $pty;

    # Create the GDB object, telling the inferior process to use the new xterm's pty
    my $gdb = new Devel::GDB( '-use-tty' => $pty->ttyname );

    while(<STDIN>)
    {
        chomp;

        if(/^Z/)
        {
            $gdb->interrupt;
            next;
        }

        my $result = $gdb->send_cmd($_);
        last unless defined($result);
        print STDERR "[GDB] $result\n";
    }

    $gdb->end;

TODO

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There are a number of features that will be made available in future versions of Devel::GDB. Among them:

SEE ALSO

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Devel::GDB::LowLevel

AUTHORS

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Antal Novak <afn@cpan.org>, Josef Ezra <jezra@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

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Devel-GDB documentation Contained in the Devel-GDB distribution.
package Devel::GDB;

use 5.006;
use strict;
use warnings;

use Devel::GDB::LowLevel;
use threads::shared;
use Thread::Semaphore;

use B qw( cstring );

our $VERSION = '2.02';
our $DEBUG;
our $DEPRECATED;

sub new
{
    my $class  = shift;

    # Break up @_ into our params and those passed to $level0
    my (@params, @level0_params);
    %_ = @_;
    while(my @p = each(%_))
    {
        $p[0] =~ /^-(use-threads|readline-fn)$/ and push @params, @p
            or push @level0_params, @p
    }

    my $self = bless
    {
        next_token     => 0,
        response       => {},
        sinks          => {},
        LOCK_shared    => 0,
        LOCK_excl      => new Thread::Semaphore,
        DEAD           => 0,                            # Set to 1 when _the_gdb_thread exits
        '-use-threads' => $threads::VERSION,            # Use threads if they're enabled (user can override)
        '-readline-fn' => \&_readline, 
        @params
    };

    if($DEPRECATED)
    {
        $self->{'-readline-fn'} = undef;

        die "Threads cannot be enabled when \$Devel::GDB::DEPRECATED is set!"
            if $self->{'-use-threads'};
    }

    share($self->{'next_token'});
    share($self->{'response'});
    share($self->{'sinks'});
    share($self->{'LOCK_shared'});
    share($self->{'DEAD'});

    $self->{level0} = new Devel::GDB::LowLevel( @level0_params );

    if($self->{'-use-threads'})
    {
        # Don't dynamically load "threads" here: things get messy because
        # threads::shared is already loaded
        die "Please 'use threads' before instantiating Devel::GDB with -use-threads => 1!"
            unless($threads::VERSION);

        $self->{trT} = threads->create( \&_the_gdb_thread, $self )
            or die "can't create thread: $@\n";
    }

    return $self;
}

sub send_cmd
{
    my $self = shift;
    my ($cmd) = @_;

    $self->_lock_shared();
    my ($result, $token) = $self->_send_cmd($cmd);
    $self->_unlock_shared();

    return wantarray ? ($result, $token) : $result;
}

sub send_cmd_excl
{
    my $self = shift;
    my ($cmd, $before_fn, $after_fn) = @_;

    $self->_lock_exclusive();
    $before_fn->() if $before_fn;

    my ($result, $token) = $self->_send_cmd($cmd);

    $after_fn->() if $after_fn;
    $self->_unlock_exclusive();

    return wantarray ? ($result, $token) : $result;
}

sub send_cmd_async
{
    my $self = shift;
    my ($cmd, $callback) = @_;

    die "send_cmd_async() cannot be used in threaded mode"
        if $self->{'-use-threads'};

    $self->_send_cmd($cmd, 1, $callback);
}


sub get
{
    my $self = shift;

    if($DEPRECATED or @_ > 1)
    {
        return $self->_get_deprecated(@_);
    }

    my ($cmd) = @_;

    my $buffer = &share([]);
    my $before_fn = $self->_generate_redirector('console', $buffer);
    my $after_fn  = $self->_generate_undirector('console');

    my $result = $self->send_cmd_excl($cmd, $before_fn, $after_fn);

    # Return undef if send_cmd_excl returned undef (EOF)
    return undef unless defined($result);

    # Return the buffer, if the command succeeded
    if($result =~ /^done/)
    {
        return join('', @$buffer);
    }

    # Check if GDB gave us an error
    if($result =~ /^error,(.*)/)
    {
        return wantarray ? (undef, $1) : undef;
    }

    # Otherwise, something strange happened
    return wantarray ? (undef, "Unexpected result: $result") : undef;
}

sub get_expect_obj
{
    my $self = shift;
    return $self->{level0}->get_expect_obj;
}

sub get_reader
{
    my $self = shift;
    return $self->{level0}->get_reader;
}

sub demux
{
    my $self = shift;

    die "Cannot call demux() in threaded mode!"
        if $self->{'-use-threads'};

    return $self->_demux(@_);
}

sub interrupt
{
    my $self = shift;
    $self->{level0}->interrupt;
}

sub end
{
    my $self = shift;

    # Don't talk to level0 if it's already dead
    unless($self->{'DEAD'})
    {
        $self->{level0}->interrupt;
        $self->{level0}->send("-gdb-exit");
    }

    $self->{trT}->join
        if $self->{trT};
}

sub _generate_redirector
{
    my $self = shift;
    my ($stream, $buffer) = @_;

    return sub
    {
        lock $self->{sinks};

        die "Something wrong here: cannot have multiple redirectors for the same stream!"
            if defined($self->{sinks}->{$stream});

        $self->{sinks}->{$stream} = $buffer;
    };
}

sub _generate_undirector
{
    my $self = shift;
    my ($stream) = @_;

    return sub
    {
        lock $self->{sinks};

        die "Something wrong here: trying to undirect $stream when no redirection is in place!"
            unless defined($self->{sinks}->{$stream});

        delete $self->{sinks}->{$stream};
    };
}

# Acquire a shared lock.  Blocks if the exclusive lock is held,
# until the exclusive lock is released.
sub _lock_shared
{
    my $self = shift;

    lock $self->{'LOCK_shared'};

    # Acquire the exclusive lock if we're the first shared lock holder
    if(!$self->{'LOCK_shared'})
    {
        # Note: if _lock_exclusive blocks, then nobody can acquire the lock on
        # LOCK_shared.  This won't result in any deadlocks, since the only 
        # possible LOCK_shared waiters are other _lock_shared() callers, and
        # NOT _unlock_shared() (since the lock count is zero!)
        $self->_lock_exclusive();
    }

    $self->{'LOCK_shared'}++;
    printf STDERR "+++ Shared lock count is now $self->{LOCK_shared}\n"
        if $DEBUG;
}

sub _unlock_shared
{
    my $self = shift;

    lock $self->{'LOCK_shared'};
    $self->{'LOCK_shared'}--;

    # Release the exclusive lock if we're the last shared lock holder
    if(!$self->{'LOCK_shared'})
    {
        $self->_unlock_exclusive();
    }

    printf STDERR "--- Shared lock count is now $self->{LOCK_shared}\n"
        if $DEBUG;
}

# Acquire an exclusive lock.  Blocks if any shared or exclusive locks are
# held, until they are all released.
sub _lock_exclusive
{
    my $self = shift;

    # Acquire the exclusive lock.  This will block until
    # (a) the shared-lock count goes to zero, and
    # (b) nobody else is holding an exclusive lock.
    $self->{'LOCK_excl'}->down;

    printf STDERR "+++ EXCLUSIVE LOCK AQUIRED\n"
        if $DEBUG;
}

# Release an exclusive lock.
sub _unlock_exclusive
{
    my $self = shift;
    $self->{'LOCK_excl'}->up;

    printf STDERR "--- EXCLUSIVE LOCK RELEASED\n"
        if $DEBUG;
}

sub _send_cmd
{
    my $self = shift;
    my ($cmd, $is_async, $callback) = @_;

    die "Not yet implemented"
        if $is_async;

    # Make sure there's no token there
    $cmd =~ s/^[0-9]+//;

    # Make sure it's a GBM/MI command; otherwise, turn it into one
    if($cmd !~ /^-/)
    {
        $cmd = '-interpreter-exec console "' . _escape($cmd) . '"';
    }

    # Generate a token
    my $token = $self->_generate_token();

    # Send the command, and wait for a response
    $self->{level0}->send($token . $cmd);

    # Wait until we get a response
    my $response = $self->_wait($token);

    return ($response, $token);
}

sub _escape
{
    my ($string) = @_;
    my $qstring = cstring($string);

    # Remove the quotes around it
    $qstring =~ s/^"(.*)"$/$1/;

    return $qstring;
}

my %unesc = (  "\\" => "\\",
               "\"" => "\"",
               "a"  => "\a",
               "b"  => "\b",
               "t"  => "\t",
               "n"  => "\n",
               "f"  => "\f",
               "r"  => "\r",
               "e"  => "\e",
               "v"  => "\013",
            );

sub _unescape
{
   # Looks like we have to do this one ourselves
   my ($string) = @_;

   # Unescape any \X for various characters X (including \\ and \")
   $string =~ s/\\([\\\"abtnfrev])/$unesc{$1} || "\\$1"/esg;

   # Unescape \OCTAL for various octal values
   $string =~ s/\\(0[0-7]+)/chr(oct($1))/esg;

   return $string;
}

sub _generate_token
{
    my $self = shift;

    lock $self->{next_token};
    lock $self->{response};

    # Create the actual token
    my $token = $self->{next_token}++;

    # Create a shared variable for one response received on this token (used by demux)
    # (subsequent responses will be treated as "late responses")
    $self->{response}->{$token} = &share(\my $tmp);

    # Return the token and the buffer
    return $token;
}

sub _wait
{
    my $self = shift;
    my ($token) = @_;

    # Wait until the buffer is non-empty
    my $response = $self->{response}->{$token};
    lock($response);
    until(defined $$response)
    {
        last if($self->{'DEAD'});

        if($self->{'-use-threads'})
        {
            cond_wait($response);
        }
        else
        {
            last unless $self->_message_loop();
        }
    }

    # Keep the response, then delete the entry in $self->{response}
    delete $self->{response}->{$token};
    return $$response;
}

sub _the_gdb_thread
{
    my $self = shift;

    # Close the duplicated filehandle: we don't need it in this thread
    close $self->{level0}->{TTY}
        if $self->{level0}->{TTY};

    while($self->_message_loop()) { }

    # Set the DEAD flag
    $self->{'DEAD'} = 1;

    # Wake up any threads stuck in _wait().
    #
    # Note: _wait() tests the DEAD flag AFTER locking $self->{response}->{$token},
    # so there's no race condition here: we won't get the $response lock until
    # after it's released by cond_wait().
    {
        lock $self->{response};
        foreach my $token (keys %{$self->{response}})
        {
            my $response = $self->{response}->{$token};
            if(defined $response)
            {
                lock $response;
                cond_signal($response);
            }
        }
    }
}

sub _readline
{
    my $self = shift;
    local $/ = "\n";
    return readline($self->get_reader);
}

sub _message_loop
{
    my $self = shift;

    die "The new API is not available when \$Devel::GDB::DEPRECATED is set!"
        if $DEPRECATED;

    my $line = $self->{'-readline-fn'}->($self);
    if(defined $line)
    {
        chomp $line;
        $self->_demux($line);
        return 1;
    }

    return 0;
}

sub _demux
{
    my $self = shift;
    my ($line) = @_;

    printf STDERR "<<< %s\n", $line
        if $DEBUG;

    if($line eq '(gdb) ')
    {
        # Ignore it
    }
    elsif($line =~ /^~"(.*)"$/)
    {
        $self->_record_stream('console', _unescape($1));
    }
    elsif($line =~ /^@"(.*)"$/)
    {
        $self->_record_stream('target', _unescape($1));
    }
    elsif($line =~ /^&"(.*)"$/)
    {
        $self->_record_stream('log', _unescape($1));
    }
    elsif($line =~ /^([0-9]+)\^(.*)$/)
    {
        $self->_record_result($2, $1);
    }
    elsif($line =~ /^([0-9]+)\*(.*)$/)
    {
        $self->_record_async_exec($2, $1);
    }
    elsif($line =~ /^([0-9]+)\+(.*)$/)
    {
        $self->_record_async_status($2, $1);
    }
    elsif($line =~ /^([0-9]+)=*(.*)$/)
    {
        $self->_record_async_notify($2, $1);
    }
}

sub _record_stream($$$)
{
    my $self = shift;
    my ($stream, $input) = @_;

    # Split line if it's multiple lines
    foreach my $line (split "\n", $input)
    {
        # Add (back) newline terminator
        $line = "$line\n";

        # Use redirection if it's set up
        lock $self->{sinks};
        if(defined $self->{sinks}->{$stream})
        {
            push @{$self->{sinks}->{$stream}}, $line;
            next;
        }

        # Hack: GDB prints "Quit" to the log stream if we sent it SIGINT
        # when the inferior process is not running.  Swallow this spurious
        # output.
        next if $line eq "Quit\n";

        # Otherwise, dump it to STDERR for now
        local $\ = "";
        print STDERR $line;
    }
}

sub _record_result($$$)
{
    my $self = shift;
    my ($line, $token) = @_;

    my $response = $self->{response}->{$token};
    lock $response if defined($response);

    # Process the first response, and only the first response
    #
    # Note: we avoid a race condition with _wait() by checking
    # defined($self->{response}->{$token}) rather than defined($response)
    if(defined $self->{response}->{$token} and !defined($$response))
    {
        $$response = $line;
        cond_signal($response);
    }

    # All others are handled as "late responses"
    else
    {
        return $self->_record_stream('late_response', "($token) $line");
    }
}

sub _record_async_exec($$$)
{
    my $self = shift;
    my ($line, $token) = @_;

    local $, = ": ";
    local $\ = "\n";
    print STDERR "exec-async-output", $token, $line;
}

sub _record_async_status($$$)
{
    my $self = shift;
    my ($line, $token) = @_;

    local $, = ": ";
    local $\ = "\n";
    print STDERR "status-async-output", $token, $line;
}

sub _record_async_notify($$$)
{
    my $self = shift;
    my ($line, $token) = @_;

    local $, = ": ";
    local $\ = "\n";
    print STDERR "notify-async-output", $token, $line;
}

sub _pipe_read {
    my ($out, $to, $pr, $cb) = @_ ;
    $out = $out->{OUT} unless ref($out) =~ /GLOB|FileHandle/ ;
    $to ||= undef ;
    my $rmask = '' ;
    vec ($rmask, fileno( $out ), 1) = 1 ;
    my ($buf, $buffer, $err) ;
    while (not $err) {
        my $nread;
        if ( $cb ) {
            # this call back should be called every second. if it
            # returns true, abandon. Not mswin supported
            for( ; !defined($to) or 0 < $to; --$to if defined($to)) {
                my $r = $rmask ;
                ($nread) = select ($r, undef, undef, 1 ) ;
                last if $nread ;
                last if $cb -> ($to) and $err = 'STOPPED' ;
            }
        }
        else {
            my $r = $rmask ;
            ($nread) = select $r, undef, undef, $to ;
        }
        last if ! $nread and $err = 'TIMEOUT' ;
        $buffer ||= '' ;
        sysread $out, $buf, 10_000 ;
        last if ! $buf and $err = 'EOF' ;
        $buffer .= $buf ;
        last if ! $pr or $buffer =~ /$pr/s ;
    }

    return ($buffer, $err || '');
}

sub _get_deprecated
{
    # returns (buffer, error, prompt) in array context
    # return buffer in scalar context (undef if error)
    my $self = shift or die 'whoami';
    my ($cmd, $timeout, undef, $wait_callback, $done_callback) = @_ ;

    die "This syntax is deprecated.  Please update your code, or set \$Devel::GDB::DEPRECATED = 1"
        unless $DEPRECATED;

    die "Deprecated get() is not compatible with threads"
        if $self->{'-use-threads'};

    # Make sure it's a GBM/MI command; otherwise, turn it into one
    if($cmd !~ /^-/)
    {
        $cmd = '-interpreter-exec console "' . _escape($cmd) . '"';
    }

    $self->{'level0'}->send($cmd);

    my ($buffer, $err) = _pipe_read( $self->get_reader, $timeout, qr/(^|\n)\^/, $wait_callback ) ;
    $done_callback and $done_callback->();

    if($err)
    {
        return wantarray ? ($buffer, $err) : undef;
    }

    # Filter out the console output stream (discard everything else)
    my @lines = grep { /^~"(.*)"$/ } (split /\n/, $buffer);

    # Unescape the contents of the stream
    s/^~"(.*)"$/_unescape($1)/xe
        foreach(@lines);

    # Return the result
    $buffer = join('', @lines);

    return wantarray ? ($buffer, $err) : $buffer;
}

1;

__END__