Building on MacOS CLion

By default, CLion uses built-in ‘Bundled LLDB’ debugger. This driver has no problems, and it is suitable for python hooking. You can review selected debugger in Settings -> Build, Execution, Deployment -> Toolchains -> Debugger.

CLion's lldb debugger uses python framework instead of python library. By default, it is contained in /Applications/CLion.app/Contents/bin/lldb/mac. Let's ensure that.

• Open CLion

• Setup basic c++ project

  • Open your c++ project (or create a basic one)
  • Build it in Debug mode

• Discover python framework directory path variable

  • Set a breakpoint anywhere and run newly created debugging session
  • When paused, open LLDB debug console in the Debug tool window.
  • Execute script import platform; platform.python_version() to get the exact version of used python binary
  • For instance, here I got the following results:

  '3.9.1'
  

  • Execute script import sys; print(sys.path) to ret a list of search paths for modules
  • For instance, here I got the following results:

  ['/Applications/CLion.app/Contents/bin/lldb/mac/LLDB.framework', '/usr/local/bin/OpenImageDebugger', '/Applications/CLion.app/Contents/bin/lldb/mac/LLDB.framework/Resources/Python', '/Applications/CLion.app/Contents/bin/lldb/renderers', '/Applications/CLion.app/Contents/bin/lldb/mac/Python.framework/lib/python39.zip', '/Applications/CLion.app/Contents/bin/lldb/mac/Python.framework/lib/python3.9', '/Applications/CLion.app/Contents/bin/lldb/mac/Python.framework/lib/python3.9/lib-dynload', '.', '/usr/local/bin/OpenImageDebugger']
  

• Discover python framework

  • You have to find a path, which contains Python.framework in it. In my case it is this path: /Applications/CLion.app/Contents/bin/lldb/mac/Python.framework/lib/python3.9
  • Take parent directory of Python.framework: /Applications/CLion.app/Contents/bin/lldb/mac
  • Jot path to this directory down, because it will be needed in the following steps

• Discover python include directory

  • Since CLion doesn't contain python include files, we have to provide include files from system python. Such directory must contain file named ‘Python.h’ and a bunch of others
  • It will be perfect to provide exactly the same version of include files, however it's usually enough to provide existent ones even if versions don't match
  • Tip. You can use Anaconda to get a specific version of python development package: conda install python=3.9.1
  • In my case, python include directory is located under /Users/agromov/opt/anaconda3/include/python3.9
  • Jot path to this file down, because it will be needed in the following steps