When a value is printed in various contexts, gdb uses annotations to delimit the value from the surrounding text.
If a value is printed using print and added to the value history, the annotation looks like
^Z^Zvalue-history-begin history-number value-flags history-string ^Z^Zvalue-history-value the-value ^Z^Zvalue-history-end |
where history-number is the number it is getting in the value history, history-string is a string, such as $5 = , which introduces the value to the user, the-value is the output corresponding to the value itself, and value-flags is * for a value which can be dereferenced and - for a value which cannot.
If the value is not added to the value history (it is an invalid float or it is printed with the output command), the annotation is similar:
^Z^Zvalue-begin value-flags the-value ^Z^Zvalue-end |
When gdb prints an argument to a function (for example, in the output from the backtrace command), it annotates it as follows:
^Z^Zarg-begin argument-name ^Z^Zarg-name-end separator-string ^Z^Zarg-value value-flags the-value ^Z^Zarg-end |
where argument-name is the name of the argument, separator-string is text which separates the name from the value for the user's benefit (such as =), and value-flags and the-value have the same meanings as in a value-history-begin annotation.
When printing a structure, gdb annotates it as follows:
^Z^Zfield-begin value-flags field-name ^Z^Zfield-name-end separator-string ^Z^Zfield-value the-value ^Z^Zfield-end |
where field-name is the name of the field, separator-string is text which separates the name from the value for the user's benefit (such as =), and value-flags and the-value have the same meanings as in a value-history-begin annotation.
When printing an array, gdb annotates it as follows:
^Z^Zarray-section-begin array-index value-flags |
where array-index is the index of the first element being annotated and value-flags has the same meaning as in a value-history-begin annotation. This is followed by any number of elements, where is element can be either a single element:
, whitespace ; omitted for the first element the-value ^Z^Zelt |
or a repeated element
, whitespace ; omitted for the first element the-value ^Z^Zelt-rep number-of-repetitions repetition-string ^Z^Zelt-rep-end |
In both cases, the-value is the output for the value of the element and whitespace can contain spaces, tabs, and newlines. In the repeated case, number-of-repetitions is the number of consecutive array elements which contain that value, and repetition-string is a string which is designed to convey to the user that repetition is being depicted.
Once all the array elements have been output, the array annotation is ended with
^Z^Zarray-section-end |