How to pretty-print STL containers in GDB?

Question

I\'ve followed the instructions on the GDB wiki to install the python pretty-printers for viewing STL containers. My ~/.gdbinit now looks like this:

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Answer 1

If you type info type _Rep after the Python exception, gdb will inform you about the classes loaded that match _Rep. That list could help you to find why python cannot find your std::string class.

I just faced your problem and in my case was intel c compiler, icc, who broke pretty printing. In particular, unqualified icc name for std::string results in:

std::basic_string, std::allocator >::std::basic_string, std::allocator >::_Rep;

but pretty printer was looking for unqualified gcc name:

std::basic_string, std::allocator::_Rep;

What I did to solve my problem was modifying class StdStringPrinter in printers.py, adding the unqualified name of the string to the typename to look in gdb. Replacing the line:

reptype = gdb.lookup_type (str (realtype) + '::_Rep').pointer ()

with this:

reptype = gdb.lookup_type (str (realtype) + '::' + str (realtype) + '::_Rep').pointer ()

With the obtained list from info type you could fix your pretty printers to make them work.