[Dwarf-Discuss] unwinding stack (CIE/FDE)

[Saurabh]

Sorry guys,
I think the discussion got diverted and I am still unclear on how to find the 
return address. The example in the Dwarf Appendix is confusing and varying 
compiler implementations have corroded my understanding further.

These are my questions.
1) I have not been able to fully interpret CFA instructions, so I am having 
trouble finding?where the return address is saved. From what I understand CFA is 
same as SP at entry of a function. Which means that the CFA is what is pointing 
to the return address.

2) I understand "advance loc" is used to add a line to the reg rule table. I 
have noticed that sometimes the prologoue can be missing, but that shouldn't 
stop me from getting the return address(CFA)

3) I need to know which entry would tell me where the return address is saved or 
where CFA for the FDE is?

4) Which register is the one pointing to CFA?

4) Where are the arguments being saved?

5) How to get to the CFA at next level, in order to make a tree. Do I simply use 
the return address to find the corrsponding FDE using start/end PC and repeat.

Below are dumps from dwarfdump and readelf of a sample run that?you can refer 
to.

I have got the libunwinder library, but it has too much detail and I just need 
to understand the unlying basic logic.

fde:
<? 0><0x0:0x6><><fde offset 0x4c length: 0x10><eh offset none>
??? 0x00000000:?
*** DWARF CHECK: An fde low pc of 0x0 is not the first fde with that pc. The 
first is not named. ***
<? 0><0x0:0x6><><fde offset 0x60 length: 0x10><eh offset none>
??? 0x00000000:?
*** DWARF CHECK: An fde low pc of 0x0 is not the first fde with that pc. The 
first is not named. ***
<? 0><0x0:0x6><><fde offset 0x74 length: 0x10><eh offset none>
??? 0x00000000:?
*** DWARF CHECK: An fde low pc of 0x0 is not the first fde with that pc. The 
first is not named. ***
<? 0><0x0:0x1e><><fde offset 0x88 length: 0x1c><eh offset none>
??? 0x00000000:?
??? 0x00000002:?<off r13=-4(cfa) > 
??? 0x00000004:?<off r13=-4(cfa) > <off r31=r13 > 
=================
0000004c 00000010 00000000 FDE cie=00000000 pc=00000000..00000006
? DW_CFA_advance_loc: 6 to 00000006
? DW_CFA_nop
? DW_CFA_nop
? DW_CFA_nop
00000060 00000010 00000000 FDE cie=00000000 pc=00000008..0000000e
? DW_CFA_advance_loc: 6 to 0000000e
? DW_CFA_nop
? DW_CFA_nop
? DW_CFA_nop
00000074 00000010 00000000 FDE cie=00000000 pc=00000010..00000016
? DW_CFA_advance_loc: 6 to 00000016
? DW_CFA_nop
? DW_CFA_nop
? DW_CFA_nop
00000088 0000001c 00000000 FDE cie=00000000 pc=00000018..00000036
? DW_CFA_advance_loc: 2 to 0000001a
? DW_CFA_def_cfa_offset: 4
? DW_CFA_offset: r13 at cfa-4
? DW_CFA_advance_loc: 2 to 0000001c
? DW_CFA_register: r31 in r13
? DW_CFA_advance_loc: 26 to 00000036
? DW_CFA_restore: r13
? DW_CFA_def_cfa_offset: 0



________________________________
From: Mark Wielaard <mjw@redhat.com>
To: Jason Molenda <jmolenda at apple.com>
Cc: Frank Ch. Eigler <fche at redhat.com>; Saurabh <saurabhcv at yahoo.com>; 
dwarf-discuss at lists.dwarfstd.org
Sent: Wed, August 4, 2010 1:06:08 AM
Subject: Re: [Dwarf-Discuss] unwinding stack (CIE/FDE)

On Tue, 2010-08-03 at 17:37 -0700, Jason Molenda wrote:
> On Aug 3, 2010, at 5:31 PM, Frank Ch. Eigler wrote:
> 
> > Hi -
> > 
> > On Tue, Aug 03, 2010 at 04:55:23PM -0700, Jason Molenda wrote:
> >> [...]
> >> Looking at the debug_frame that my compiler (gcc-4.2 in this case) outputs,
> >> [...]
> >> There's nothing about that stack movement in the FDE.
> > 
> > Try again with CFLAGS+=-fasynchronous-unwind-tables.
>
> I'm not making this stuff up. :)? And the next question you'll ask
> yourself is why -fasynchronous-unwind-tables isn't the default output
> style for the debug_frame section in the first place.? But as you can
> see, it doesn't make any difference - at least with gcc-4.2 with the
> Apple local patches.

You might want to upgrade your compiler. gcc 4.2 is fairly old (2007,
hasn't seen a point upgrade since 2008). Current is gcc 4.5 (which will
output unwind info not just for function prologues, but also for
epilogues). On my fedora machine -fasynchronous-unwind-tables is the
default (although I couldn't replicate your situation there, since newer
gcc seems to not generate that push/pop/call dance for me). You might
also want to look at both the .debug_frame and the .eh_frame. If a
location is described in one, the compiler might not also output it in
the other.

Cheers,

Mark


      
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