[ebroder]

You're right! You could do all of this with pdb, but only if you have enough foresight to run the app under pdb to begin with (which I definitely never do).

Using GDB, you don't have to change the app or remember to run it in a particular way.

[mickeyp]

You could install a custom signal, like SIGUSR1, and have it trigger pdb when that signal is sent to your process.

[dguaraglia]

This is a great idea! I'll explore it for my own (world-domination) purposes.

[robbles]

Right, I see the use in this now. How difficult would it be to wrap this up in a reusable script that you could run directly, instead of having to manually work through the debugger prompt?

[ebroder]

Hmm, it'd probably be doable. In particular, you can use the "commands" command to script what happens when you hit a breakpoint (a friend talked about this in a Ksplice GDB blog post: https://blogs.oracle.com/ksplice/entry/8_gdb_tricks_you_shou...)

Normally, the "finish" command will interrupt any script you're in the middle of executing, so we have to do a bit of an ugly hack to make sure our script keeps running:

b PyEval_EvalFrameEx if strcmp(PyString_AsString(f->f_code->co_name), "handle_uncaught_exception") == 0

commands

disable

frame 3

python

gdb.execute('finish')

gdb.execute('shell git stash pop')

gdb.execute('call PyImport_ReloadModule(PyImport_AddModule("monospace.views"))')

gdb.execute('call PyImport_ReloadModule(PyImport_AddModule("monospace.urls"))')

gdb.execute('set $self = PyDict_GetItemString(f->f_locals, "self")')

gdb.execute('set $request = PyDict_GetItemString(f->f_locals, "request")')

gdb.execute('set $get_response = PyObject_GetAttrString($self, "get_response")')

gdb.execute('set $args = Py_BuildValue("(O)", $request)')

gdb.execute('set $rax PyObject_Call($get_response, $args, 0)')

gdb.execute('enable')

gdb.execute('c')

end

c

end

(Bah. Edited because I couldn't get monospace text working)

You could put those commands into a file and run "gdb -p <my django process> -x <my commands file>"

Of course, instead of shelling out to git stash pop, you'd probably want to pause so you could update the code. And you may need to reload more modules than just monospace.views and monospace.urls, depending on the change.

[Luyt]

> Edited because I couldn't get monospace text working

If you start each line with a few spaces, HN will format it as source code:

    b PyEval_EvalFrameEx if strcmp(PyString_AsString(f->f_code->co_name), "handle_uncaught_exception") == 0
    commands
    disable
    frame 3
    python
    gdb.execute('finish')
    gdb.execute('shell git stash pop')
    gdb.execute('call PyImport_ReloadModule(PyImport_AddModule("monospace.views"))')
    gdb.execute('call PyImport_ReloadModule(PyImport_AddModule("monospace.urls"))')
    gdb.execute('set $self = PyDict_GetItemString(f->f_locals, "self")')
    gdb.execute('set $request = PyDict_GetItemString(f->f_locals, "request")')
    gdb.execute('set $get_response = PyObject_GetAttrString($self, "get_response")')
    gdb.execute('set $args = Py_BuildValue("(O)", $request)')
    gdb.execute('set $rax PyObject_Call($get_response, $args, 0)')
    gdb.execute('enable')
    gdb.execute('c')
    end
    c
    end

[rmaccloy]

This actually exists, sort of: http://pyrasite.readthedocs.org/en/latest/index.html

I've done this manually a few times, but with foresight attaching signal handlers that open up a port or dump stack (a la `jstack`) is usually less finicky.

[lucian1900]

Then perhaps it would be easier to use gdb just for bootstrapping pdb into the app?