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ltrace.conf(5) ltrace configuration file ltrace.conf(5)
NAME
ltrace.conf - Configuration file for ltrace(1).
DESCRIPTION
This manual page describes ltrace.conf, a file that describes proto-
types of functions in binaries for ltrace(1) to use. Ltrace needs this
information to display function call arguments.
Each line of a configuration file describes at most a single item.
Lines composed entirely of white space are ignored, as are lines start-
ing with semicolon or hash characters (comment lines). Described items
can be either function prototypes, or definitions of type aliases.
PROTOTYPES
A prototype describes return type and parameter types of a single func-
tion. The syntax is as follows:
[function] LENS NAME ([LENS{,LENS}]);
NAME is the (mangled) name of a symbol. In the elementary case, LENS
is simply a type. Both lenses and types are described below. The
function keyword, if present, has no effect. It can be used to force a
line to be interpreted as a function prototype when the return type is
a keyword that would start a different type of line (such as import).
For example, a simple function prototype might look like this:
int kill(int,int);
Despite the apparent similarity with C, ltrace.conf is really its own
language that's only somewhat inspired by C.
TYPES
Ltrace understands a range of primitive types. Those are interpreted
according to C convention native on a given architecture. E.g. ulong
is interpreted as 4-byte unsigned integer on 32-bit GNU/Linux machine,
but 8-byte unsigned integer on 64-bit GNU/Linux machine.
void Denotes that a function does not return anything. Can be also
used to construct a generic pointer, i.e. pointer-sized number
formatted in hexadecimal format.
char 8-bit quantity rendered as a character
ushort,short
Denotes unsigned or signed short integer.
uint,int
Denotes unsigned or signed integer.
ulong,long
Denotes unsigned or signed long integer.
float Denotes floating point number with single precision.
double Denotes floating point number with double precision.
Besides primitive types, the following composed types are possible:
struct([LENS{,LENS}])
Describes a structure with given types as fields, e.g.
struct(int,int,float).
Alignment is computed as customary on the architecture. Custom
alignment (e.g. packed structs) and bit-fields are not sup-
ported. It's also not possible to differentiate between structs
and non-POD C++ classes, for arches where it makes a difference.
array(LENS,EXPR)
Describes array of length EXPR, which is composed of types de-
scribed by LENS, e.g. array(int, 6).
Note that in C, arrays in role of function argument decay into
pointers. Ltrace currently handles this automatically, but for
full formal correctness, any such arguments should be described
as pointers to arrays.
LENS* Describes a pointer to a given type, e.g. char* or int***. Note
that the former example actually describes a pointer to a char-
acter, not a string. See below for string lens, which is appli-
cable to these cases.
LENSES
Lenses change the way that types are described. In the simplest case,
a lens is directly a type. Otherwise a type is decorated by the lens.
Ltrace understands the following lenses:
oct(TYPE)
The argument, which should be an integer type, is formatted in
base-8.
hex(TYPE)
The argument, which should be an integer or floating point type,
is formatted in base-16. Floating point arguments are converted
to double and then displayed using the %a fprintf modifier.
hide(TYPE)
The argument is not shown in argument list.
bool(TYPE)
Arguments with zero value are shown as "false", others are shown
as "true".
bitvec(TYPE)
Underlying argument is interpreted as a bit vector and a summary
of bits set in the vector is displayed. For example if bits
3,4,5 and 7 of the bit vector are set, ltrace shows <3-5,7>.
Empty bit vector is displayed as <>. If there are more bits set
than unset, inverse is shown instead: e.g. ~<0> when a number
0xfffffffe is displayed. Full set is thus displayed ~<>.
If the underlying type is integral, then bits are shown in their
natural big-endian order, with LSB being bit 0. E.g.
bitvec(ushort) with value 0x0102 would be displayed as <1,8>,
irrespective of underlying byte order.
For other data types (notably structures and arrays), the under-
lying data is interpreted byte after byte. Bit 0 of first byte
has number 0, bit 0 of second byte number 8, and so on. Thus
bitvec(struct(int)) is endian sensitive, and will show bytes
comprising the integer in their memory order. Pointers are
first dereferenced, thus bitvec(array(char, 32)*) is actually a
pointer to 256-bit bit vector.
string(TYPE)
string[EXPR]
string
The first form of the argument is canonical, the latter two are
syntactic sugar. In the canonical form, the function argument
is formatted as string. The TYPE can have either of the follow-
ing forms: X*, or array(X,EXPR), or array(X,EXPR)*. X is either
char for normal strings, or an integer type for wide-character
strings.
If an array is given, the length will typically be a zero ex-
pression (but doesn't have to be). Using argument that is plain
array (i.e. not a pointer to array) makes sense e.g. in C
structs, in cases like struct(string(array(char, 6))), which de-
scribes the C type struct {char s[6];}.
Because simple C-like strings are pretty common, there are two
shorthand forms. The first shorthand form (with brackets) means
the same as string(array(char, EXPR)*). Plain string without an
argument is then taken to mean the same as string[zero].
Note that char* by itself describes a pointer to a char. Ltrace
will dereference the pointer, and read and display the single
character that it points to.
enum(NAME[=VALUE]{,NAME[=VALUE]})
enum[TYPE](NAME[=VALUE]{,NAME[=VALUE]})
This describes an enumeration lens. If an argument has any of
the given values, it is instead shown as the corresponding NAME.
If a VALUE is omitted, the next consecutive value following af-
ter the previous VALUE is taken instead. If the first VALUE is
omitted, it's 0 by default.
TYPE, if given, is the underlying type. It is thus possible to
create enums over shorts or longs--arguments that are themselves
plain, non-enum types in C, but whose values can be meaningfully
described as enumerations. If omitted, TYPE is taken to be int.
TYPE ALIASES
A line in config file can, instead of describing a prototype, create a
type alias. Instead of writing the same enum or struct on many places
(and possibly updating when it changes), one can introduce a name for
such type, and later just use that name:
typedef NAME = LENS;
IMPORT DIRECTIVES
It's possible for config files to import definitions from other config
files. A line of the form:
import "FILENAME";
will make all definitions from FILENAME.conf available in the current
file. The imported file is searched for in the same directories as
when looking up a config file corresponding to a library; see ltrace(1)
for details.
RECURSIVE STRUCTURES
Ltrace allows you to express recursive structures. Such structures are
expanded to the depth described by the parameter -A. To declare a re-
cursive type, you first have to introduce the type to ltrace by using
forward declaration. Then you can use the type in other type defini-
tions in the usual way:
typedef NAME = struct;
typedef NAME = struct(NAME can be used here)
For example, consider the following singy-linked structure and a func-
tion that takes such list as an argument:
typedef int_list = struct;
typedef int_list = struct(int, int_list*);
void ll(int_list*);
Such declarations might lead to an output like the following:
ll({ 9, { 8, { 7, { 6, ... } } } }) = <void>
Ltrace detects recursion and will not expand already-expanded struc-
tures. Thus a doubly-linked list would look like the following:
typedef int_list = struct;
typedef int_list = struct(int, int_list*, int_list*);
With output e.g. like:
ll({ 9, { 8, { 7, { 6, ..., ... }, recurse^ }, recurse^ }, nil
})
The "recurse^" tokens mean that given pointer points to a structure
that was expanded in the previous layer. Simple "recurse" would mean
that it points back to this object. E.g. "recurse^^^" means it points
to a structure three layers up. For doubly-linked list, the pointer to
the previous element is of course the one that has been just expanded
in the previous round, and therefore all of them are either recurse^,
or nil. If the next and previous pointers are swapped, the output ad-
justs correspondingly:
ll({ 9, nil, { 8, recurse^, { 7, recurse^, { 6, ..., ... } } }
})
EXPRESSIONS
Ltrace has support for some elementary expressions. Each expression
can be either of the following:
NUM An integer number.
argNUM Value of NUM-th argument. The expression has the same value as
the corresponding argument. arg1 refers to the first argument,
arg0 to the return value of the given function.
retval Return value of function, same as arg0.
eltNUM Value of NUM-th element of the surrounding structure type. E.g.
struct(ulong,array(int,elt1)) describes a structure whose first
element is a length, and second element an array of ints of that
length.
zero
zero(EXPR)
Describes array which extends until the first element, whose
each byte is 0. If an expression is given, that is the maximum
length of the array. If NUL terminator is not found earlier,
that's where the array ends.
PARAMETER PACKS
Sometimes the actual function prototype varies slightly depending on
the exact parameters given. For example, the number and types of
printf parameters are not known in advance, but ltrace might be able to
determine them in runtime. This feature has wider applicability, but
currently the only parameter pack that ltrace supports is printf-style
format string itself:
format When format is seen in the parameter list, the underlying string
argument is parsed, and GNU-style format specifiers are used to
determine what the following actual arguments are. E.g. if the
format string is "%s %d\n", it's as if the format was replaced
by string, string, int.
RETURN ARGUMENTS
C functions often use one or more arguments for returning values back
to the caller. The caller provides a pointer to storage, which the
called function initializes. Ltrace has some support for this idiom.
When a traced binary hits a function call, ltrace first fetches all ar-
guments. It then displays left portion of the argument list. Only
when the function returns does ltrace display right portion as well.
Typically, left portion takes up all the arguments, and right portion
only contains return value. But ltrace allows you to configure where
exactly to put the dividing line by means of a + operator placed in
front of an argument:
int asprintf(+string*, format);
Here, the first argument to asprintf is denoted as return argument,
which means that displaying the whole argument list is delayed until
the function returns:
a.out->asprintf( <unfinished ...>
libc.so.6->malloc(100) = 0x245b010
[... more calls here ...]
<... asprintf resumed> "X=1", "X=%d", 1) = 5
It is currently not possible to have an "inout" argument that passes
information in both directions.
EXAMPLES
In the following, the first is the C prototype, and following that is
ltrace configuration line.
void func_charp_string(char str[]);
void func_charp_string(string);
enum e_foo {RED, GREEN, BLUE};
void func_enum(enum e_foo bar);
void func_enum(enum(RED,GREEN,BLUE));
- or -
typedef e_foo = enum(RED,GREEN,BLUE);
void func_enum(e_foo);
void func_arrayi(int arr[], int len);
void func_arrayi(array(int,arg2)*,int);
struct S1 {float f; char a; char b;};
struct S2 {char str[6]; float f;};
struct S1 func_struct(int a, struct S2, double d);
struct(float,char,char) func_struct(int, struct(string(ar-
ray(char, 6)),float), double);
AUTHOR
Petr Machata <pmachata@redhat.com>
October 2012 ltrace.conf(5)
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