--- /dev/null
+.. _debugging-jited-code:
+
+.. sectionauthor:: Reid Kleckner and Eli Bendersky
+
+==============================
+Debugging JIT-ed Code With GDB
+==============================
+
+Background
+==========
+
+Without special runtime support, debugging dynamically generated code with
+GDB (as well as most debuggers) can be quite painful. Debuggers generally
+read debug information from the object file of the code, but for JITed
+code, there is no such file to look for.
+
+In order to communicate the necessary debug info to GDB, an interface for
+registering JITed code with debuggers has been designed and implemented for
+GDB and LLVM MCJIT. At a high level, whenever MCJIT generates new machine code,
+it does so in an in-memory object file that contains the debug information in
+DWARF format. MCJIT then adds this in-memory object file to a global list of
+dynamically generated object files and calls a special function
+(``__jit_debug_register_code``) marked noinline that GDB knows about. When
+GDB attaches to a process, it puts a breakpoint in this function and loads all
+of the object files in the global list. When MCJIT calls the registration
+function, GDB catches the breakpoint signal, loads the new object file from
+the inferior's memory, and resumes the execution. In this way, GDB can get the
+necessary debug information.
+
+GDB Version
+===========
+
+In order to debug code JIT-ed by LLVM, you need GDB 7.0 or newer, which is
+available on most modern distributions of Linux. The version of GDB that
+Apple ships with Xcode has been frozen at 6.3 for a while. LLDB may be a
+better option for debugging JIT-ed code on Mac OS X.
+
+
+Debugging MCJIT-ed code
+=======================
+
+The emerging MCJIT component of LLVM allows full debugging of JIT-ed code with
+GDB. This is due to MCJIT's ability to use the MC emitter to provide full
+DWARF debugging information to GDB.
+
+Note that lli has to be passed the ``-use-mcjit`` flag to JIT the code with
+MCJIT instead of the old JIT.
+
+Example
+-------
+
+Consider the following C code (with line numbers added to make the example
+easier to follow):
+
+..
+ FIXME:
+ Sphinx has the ability to automatically number these lines by adding
+ :linenos: on the line immediately following the `.. code-block:: c`, but
+ it looks like garbage; the line numbers don't even line up with the
+ lines. Is this a Sphinx bug, or is it a CSS problem?
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+ 1 int compute_factorial(int n)
+ 2 {
+ 3 if (n <= 1)
+ 4 return 1;
+ 5
+ 6 int f = n;
+ 7 while (--n > 1)
+ 8 f *= n;
+ 9 return f;
+ 10 }
+ 11
+ 12
+ 13 int main(int argc, char** argv)
+ 14 {
+ 15 if (argc < 2)
+ 16 return -1;
+ 17 char firstletter = argv[1][0];
+ 18 int result = compute_factorial(firstletter - '0');
+ 19
+ 20 // Returned result is clipped at 255...
+ 21 return result;
+ 22 }
+
+Here is a sample command line session that shows how to build and run this
+code via ``lli`` inside GDB:
+
+.. code-block:: bash
+
+ $ $BINPATH/clang -cc1 -O0 -g -emit-llvm showdebug.c
+ $ gdb --quiet --args $BINPATH/lli -use-mcjit showdebug.ll 5
+ Reading symbols from $BINPATH/lli...done.
+ (gdb) b showdebug.c:6
+ No source file named showdebug.c.
+ Make breakpoint pending on future shared library load? (y or [n]) y
+ Breakpoint 1 (showdebug.c:6) pending.
+ (gdb) r
+ Starting program: $BINPATH/lli -use-mcjit showdebug.ll 5
+ [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
+
+ Breakpoint 1, compute_factorial (n=5) at showdebug.c:6
+ 6 int f = n;
+ (gdb) p n
+ $1 = 5
+ (gdb) p f
+ $2 = 0
+ (gdb) n
+ 7 while (--n > 1)
+ (gdb) p f
+ $3 = 5
+ (gdb) b showdebug.c:9
+ Breakpoint 2 at 0x7ffff7ed404c: file showdebug.c, line 9.
+ (gdb) c
+ Continuing.
+
+ Breakpoint 2, compute_factorial (n=1) at showdebug.c:9
+ 9 return f;
+ (gdb) p f
+ $4 = 120
+ (gdb) bt
+ #0 compute_factorial (n=1) at showdebug.c:9
+ #1 0x00007ffff7ed40a9 in main (argc=2, argv=0x16677e0) at showdebug.c:18
+ #2 0x3500000001652748 in ?? ()
+ #3 0x00000000016677e0 in ?? ()
+ #4 0x0000000000000002 in ?? ()
+ #5 0x0000000000d953b3 in llvm::MCJIT::runFunction (this=0x16151f0, F=0x1603020, ArgValues=...) at /home/ebenders_test/llvm_svn_rw/lib/ExecutionEngine/MCJIT/MCJIT.cpp:161
+ #6 0x0000000000dc8872 in llvm::ExecutionEngine::runFunctionAsMain (this=0x16151f0, Fn=0x1603020, argv=..., envp=0x7fffffffe040)
+ at /home/ebenders_test/llvm_svn_rw/lib/ExecutionEngine/ExecutionEngine.cpp:397
+ #7 0x000000000059c583 in main (argc=4, argv=0x7fffffffe018, envp=0x7fffffffe040) at /home/ebenders_test/llvm_svn_rw/tools/lli/lli.cpp:324
+ (gdb) finish
+ Run till exit from #0 compute_factorial (n=1) at showdebug.c:9
+ 0x00007ffff7ed40a9 in main (argc=2, argv=0x16677e0) at showdebug.c:18
+ 18 int result = compute_factorial(firstletter - '0');
+ Value returned is $5 = 120
+ (gdb) p result
+ $6 = 23406408
+ (gdb) n
+ 21 return result;
+ (gdb) p result
+ $7 = 120
+ (gdb) c
+ Continuing.
+
+ Program exited with code 0170.
+ (gdb)
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