23.2.3 Python Auto-loading

When a new object file is read (for example, due to the file command, or because the inferior has loaded a shared library), gdb will look for Python support scripts in several ways: objfile-gdb.py and .debug_gdb_scripts section. See Auto-loading extensions.

The auto-loading feature is useful for supplying application-specific debugging commands and scripts.

Auto-loading can be enabled or disabled, and the list of auto-loaded scripts can be printed.

set auto-load python-scripts [on|off]

Enable or disable the auto-loading of Python scripts.

show auto-load python-scripts

Show whether auto-loading of Python scripts is enabled or disabled.

info auto-load python-scripts [regexp]

Print the list of all Python scripts that gdb auto-loaded.

Also printed is the list of Python scripts that were mentioned in the .debug_gdb_scripts section and were either not found (see dotdebug_gdb_scripts section) or were not auto-loaded due to auto-load safe-path rejection (see Auto-loading). This is useful because their names are not printed when gdb tries to load them and fails. There may be many of them, and printing an error message for each one is problematic.

If regexp is supplied only Python scripts with matching names are printed.

Example:

          (gdb) info auto-load python-scripts
          Loaded Script
          Yes    py-section-script.py
                 full name: /tmp/py-section-script.py
          No     my-foo-pretty-printers.py

When reading an auto-loaded file or script, gdb sets the current objfile. This is available via the gdb.current_objfile function (see Objfiles In Python). This can be useful for registering objfile-specific pretty-printers and frame-filters.