README.md

visualize-c-memory

Real-time visualization of the memory of a C program during debugging in VSCode, using vscode-debug-visualizer and GDB's Python API.

To try it

• Install graphviz.

  sudo apt install graphviz
  

• In VSCode, install vscode-debug-visualizer.

  Ctrl-P / ext install hediet.debug-visualizer
  

• Clone this repository, open it in VSCode and start debugging (F5).

  If the debugger doesn't start, make sure that gdb, make and VSCode's ms-vscode.cpptools are installed.

• Select F1 / Debug Visualizer : New View and write "memory" (including the quotes) in the visualization window that opens.

• A visualization of both the stack and the heap will appear, and it will update as you step through the code (F10, F11, etc).

• Modify examples/examples.c to try your own code.

Tested in Ubuntu 20.04 and Windows 10 under WSL. macOS is not supported (it could be adapted, but Apple makes it particularly painful to use GDB in macOS anyway).

To use it in your own project

• Build visualize-c-memory.so (by running make in src).
• Load the .so and the python module in GDB by adding the following to your launch.json:

    "environment": [
    	{"name":"LD_PRELOAD", "value":"${workspaceFolder}/<path-to>/visualize-c-memory.so"},
    ],
  "setupCommands": [
    {
      "text": "source ${workspaceFolder}/<path-to>/visualize-c-memory.py"
    }
  ],
  

  See .vscode/launch.json for an example.