pygdbmi

Install the pygdbmi package using pip to get access to the GDB machine interface parser and the GDB subprocess controller.

pip install pygdbmi

Use pygdbmi.gdbmiparser.parse_response to convert raw GDB/MI string output into structured, JSON-serializable Python dictionaries. This is useful when you are capturing output from a GDB process manually and need to process it programmatically.

from pygdbmi import gdbmiparser
from pprint import pprint

response = gdbmiparser.parse_response('^done,bkpt={number="1",type="breakpoint",disp="keep", enabled="y",addr="0x08048564",func="main",file="myprog.c",fullname="/home/myprog.c",line="68",thread-groups=["i1"],times="0"')
pprint(response)

The GdbController provides several methods to interact with the running GDB process:

• write(command, timeout_sec=1, raise_error_on_timeout=True): Sends a command (MI or standard GDB) to GDB. Use MI commands (starting with -) for better structured output.
• send_signal_to_gdb(signal): Sends a signal to GDB. signal can be the name (e.g., 'SIGKILL') or the integer value.
• interrupt_gdb(): Sends SIGINT to GDB to interrupt execution.
• exit(): Exits the GDB process.

# Examples of various interaction methods
gdbmi.write('-break-insert main')
gdbmi.write('break main')
gdbmi.send_signal_to_gdb('SIGKILL')
gdbmi.interrupt_gdb()
gdbmi.exit()

The GdbController class allows you to manage a GDB instance as a subprocess. You can write both standard GDB commands and GDB Machine Interface (MI) commands (which start with a -) and receive structured responses.

from pygdbmi.gdbcontroller import GdbController
from pprint import pprint

# Start gdb process
gdbmi = GdbController()

# Load binary a.out and get structured response
response = gdbmi.write('-file-exec-file a.out')
pprint(response)

# Example of sending an MI command with a custom timeout
response = gdbmi.write('-exec-next', timeout_sec=0.1)

Operating Systems

• Linux/Unix: Tested on Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04.
• macOS: Requires GDB to be codesigned. If you encounter please check gdb is codesigned - see taskgated(8), you must follow macOS codesigning instructions.
• Windows: Tested on Windows 10 with MinGW and cygwin.

GDB Versions

• Tested with gdb 7.6+.

Every parsed response from pygdbmi is a list of dictionaries. Each dictionary contains the following keys:

• message: A textual message from GDB (can be None).
• payload: The structured content of the output (can be a dictionary, list, string, or None).
• token: If the input command had a token, this field contains it. Present only for notify and result types.
• type: The category of the record, based on GDB/MI output types. Possible values include:
  • result: The result of a command (e.g., done, running, error).
  • notify: Asynchronous changes (e.g., breakpoint modified).
  • console: Textual responses to CLI commands.
  • log: Internal GDB debugging messages.
  • output: Output from the target.
  • target: Output from a remote target.
  • done: Indicates GDB has finished outputting.