lldb hello world

Create the following C program, main.c. We’ll use lldb to step through it.

#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
  printf("Hello 1\n");
  printf("Hello 2\n");
  return 0;
}

First, compile this with debugging in mind. The first required flag is -g, “Generate debug information.” You should also disable optimizations with -O0; this produces a program with a more obvious mapping to the source.

$ clang -g -O0 main.c

You now have an a.out which we can pass to lldb:

$ lldb -f a.out
(lldb) target create "a.out"
Current executable set to 'a.out' (x86_64).
(lldb)

You are now dropped into an lldb REPL. You can issue commands to manipulate this session. Your a.out program has not yet started; we’ll tell lldb to start it in a minute. First, set a breakpoint at the beginning of main using the b command:

(lldb) b main
Breakpoint 1: where = a.out`main + 22 at main.c:3, address = 0x0000000100000f56
(lldb)

Next, use the r command to run your a.out. The process will launch, but will stop at the breakpoint:

(lldb) r
Process 93581 launched: '/Users/jim/dev/tmp/lldb-hw/a.out' (x86_64)
Process 93581 stopped
* thread #1, queue = 'com.apple.main-thread', stop reason = breakpoint 1.1
    frame #0: 0x0000000100000f56 a.out`main at main.c:3
   1   	#include <stdio.h>
   2   	int main() {
-> 3   	  printf("Hello 1\n");
   4   	  printf("Hello 2\n");
   5   	  return 0;
   6   	}
(lldb)

You can also set breakpoints using source line numbers. This is only available when the program has debug information (which you told clang to embed using -g).

(lldb) b 4
Breakpoint 2: where = a.out`main + 36 at main.c:4, address = 0x0000000100000f64
(lldb)

Now use continue to move from our current breakpoint (main) to our new breakpoint (line 4). The process then executes line 3, printf("Hello 1\n"), and this output to stdout is shown by lldb:

(lldb) continue
Process 93581 resuming
Hello 1
Process 93581 stopped
* thread #1, queue = 'com.apple.main-thread', stop reason = breakpoint 2.1
    frame #0: 0x0000000100000f64 a.out`main at main.c:4
   1   	#include <stdio.h>
   2   	int main() {
   3   	  printf("Hello 1\n");
-> 4   	  printf("Hello 2\n");
   5   	  return 0;
   6   	}
(lldb)

If you continue again, the process will hit no further breakpoints. The process instead runs to completion and exits:

(lldb) continue
Process 93581 resuming
Hello 2
Process 93581 exited with status = 0 (0x00000000)
(lldb)

There are many more lldb commands but these are the essentials. Exit the session:

(lldb) ^D

This page copyright James Fisher 2017. Content is not associated with my employer. Found an error? Edit this page.

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