Debug Golang applications: LLDB

Even that ease and simplicity of using go are one of its main advanatages, there are difficulties in debugging applications written in go.

The lack of mature tools (like supported vim plugin) push most of us to use logging techniques to inspect and track down issues.

In this article, I will demonstrates how you can use vim and lldb to debug a go application. Before that you should make the application capable for debugging.

Prerequisites

You should compile the application by emitting the debug information and disable inlining. The -N flag enables debug information emitting and -l disables compiler inlining:

go build -gcflags '-N -l' <file_or_package>

The compiled binary supports DWARF debugging data format, which is supported by debuggers as GDB and LLDB.

You should install vim-lldb plugin from here. The easiest way to install it by using package manager as bundle. You should add Bundle "gilligan/vim-lldb" in your bundle list.

Then you can use the following commands and shortcuts:

Ltarget specifies the binary that we are going to debug
Lbreakpoint sets a breakpoint in file on particular line (<leader>lb)
Lrun starts the debugger (<leader>lr)
Lstep does a source level single step in the current thread. (<leader>ls)
Lfinish steps out of the currently selected frame. (<leader>lo)
Lnext does a source level single step over in the current thread. (<leader>ln)
Lcontinue continues execution until next breakpoint. (<leader>lc)
Lprint evaluates a generalized expression in the current frame. (<leader>lp)
Lframe variable prints the frame local variables (<leader>lv)

You can add my extra shortcuts in your .vimrc file:

nnoremap <silent> <leader>lr :Lrun<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <leader>lb :Lbreakpoint<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <leader>lc :Lcontinue<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <leader>ln :Lnext<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <leader>ls :Lstep<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <leader>li :Lstepin<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <leader>lo :Lfinish<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <leader>lp :Lprint<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <leader>lv :Lframe variable<CR>

Lets have the following source code that we are aiming to debug:

// main.go
package main

import "fmt"

type User struct {
	FirstName string
	LastName  string
}

func (user User) String() string {
	return fmt.Sprintf("%s %s", user.FirstName, user.LastName)
}

func main() {
	user := User{
		FirstName: "John",
		LastName:  "Smith",
	}

	message := FormatMessage(user, "Golang Weekly Newsletter #756")

	for index := 0; index < 3; index++ {
		fmt.Printf("Sending #%d message with %s\n", index, message)
	}
}

func FormatMessage(user User, message string) string {
	return fmt.Sprintf("body: %s by %s", message, user.String())
}

Compile the application:

$ go build -gcflags '-N -l' -o app main.go

Open the source code:
```
$ vim main.go
```
Set the LLDB target to be the compiled binary:
```
:Ltarget app
```
Set a breakpoint on desired line by using Lbreakpoint command or <leader>lb shortcut.
Then you can run the application in debug mode by using Lrun command or <leader>lr shortcut.

You can watch the illustrates steps in the following video:

Conclusion

Even though LLDB is very powerful and commonly used debugger, it does not work properly in the context of Go. It crashes sometimes. It made for C\C++ not for Go. It cannot follow the execution flow properly due to the fact that the debugger is not aware about defer statement. In addition sometimes go scheduler changes the context of current executing go routine. It changes the stack frame by moving go routine from one thread to another.

Prerequisites#

Conclusion#

Prerequisites

Conclusion