context stack with more lines

[TommyJerryMairo]

Is it possible to have something like context stack --size=35 which means GEF will temporarily change the nb_lines_stack to 35 when executing the command? The default 8 lines output fits my screen when the context is printed while hitting a breakpoint. However, sometimes I might want to inspect the whole stack frame which requires more lines to print. Currently, I'm using a user-defined command to change nb_lines_stack to 35, run the context stack, and then change the nb_lines_stack back to 8. This is ugly as both 35 and 8 are hardcoded. Also, I noticed that context stack is not autocompleted by GEF while context itself is, which means I could use conte[tab] to complete context. However, context st[tab] has no response from GEF.

[Grazfather]

That's a pretty good idea.

[CaledoniaProject]

Is it implemented?

[CaledoniaProject]

In gdb-peda, I can just do stack 50 instead of ctx stack

[hugsy]

The stack display is nothing more than the dereference command applies to $sp. So yes, it's been implemented and documented literally for years:

gef➤  dereference -l 50 $sp

After that feel free to create an alias.

[hugsy]

GEF tries to offer a maximum of flexibility, because we simply can't handle each individual preference, it allows to do it yourself in a (hopefully) seamless manner.

For what you mention, you can easily create a new pane to the context and register it using register_external_context_pane function to customize how the stack is shown. Just like I mentioned above, there is no stack command: it simply (by default) dereferences the stack pointer. If you want a custom layout for the stack you can easily do so as such:

def mystack_content(): 
  gdb.execute("dereference -l 35 $sp") # or whatever length you prefer

def mystack_title(): 
  return "mystack" 

register_external_context_pane("mystack", mystack_context, mystack_title)

Then configure how you want the context layout to be shown (search docs for gef config context.layout).

Hope that answers.

[CaledoniaProject]

Can I add this in ~/.gdbinit?

[hugsy]

Yes

[CaledoniaProject]

I fixed several typos and here's my ~/.gdbinit file

source ~/.gdbinit-gef.py
set follow-fork-mode parent

python
def mystack_content():
    gdb.execute("dereference -l 35 $sp")

def mystack_title():
    return "mystack"

register_external_context_pane("mystack", mystack_content, mystack_title)

end

But there's no mystack command in gef, what's wrong?

[hugsy]

Use gef config context.layout