Why does backtrace not contain Objective-C symbols regardless of -rdynamic? - objective-c

Question

Update: I'm working with the GNU-runtime on Linux. The problem does not occur on MacOS with the Apple-runtime.
Update 2: I compiled the GNU-runtime on MacOS and build the example with it. The error does not occur on MacOS with the GNU-runtime. I would say the problem is the glibc (since backtrace and backtrace_symbols are glibc extensions).
When printing a backtrace in a GCC compiled Objective-C app using backtraceand backtrace_symbols, I don't get any Objective-C symbols. Only the filenames, addresses and C-symbols appear.
I compiled with -g and linked with -rdynamic.
My test app:
void _printTrace()
{
void *addr[1024];
int aCount = backtrace(addr, 1024);
char **frameStrings = backtrace_symbols(addr, aCount);
for (int i = 0; i < aCount; i++) {
printf("%s\n", frameStrings[i]);
}
free(frameStrings);
}
#interface TheObject
+ (void)_printTrace;
+ (void)printTrace;
#end
#implementation TheObject
+ (void)_printTrace
{
_printTrace();
}
+ (void)printTrace
{
[self _printTrace];
}
#end
void printTrace()
{
[TheObject printTrace];
}
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
printTrace();
return 0;
}
and it's output:
./test.bin(_printTrace+0x1f) [0x8048e05]
./test.bin() [0x8048e60]
./test.bin() [0x8048e8b]
./test.bin(printTrace+0x34) [0x8048ec5]
./test.bin(main+0xf) [0x8048eda]
/lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe5) [0xb7643bb5]
./test.bin() [0x8048b51]
Is there a way to let the Objective-C symbols appear in this backtrace?

Answer 1

dladdr() only reports global and weak symbols. But all Objective-C function symbols are local:
$ readelf -s so_backtrace
Symbol table '.dynsym' contains 29 entries:
…
Symbol table '.symtab' contains 121 entries:
Num: Value Size Type Bind Vis Ndx Name
…
49: 08048a01 13 FUNC LOCAL DEFAULT 14 _c_TheObject___printTrace
50: 08048a0e 47 FUNC LOCAL DEFAULT 14 _c_TheObject__printTrace
…
You can verify that local symbols are never returned by looking at the GNU libc source code yourself. backtrace_symbols() is defined in sysdeps/generic/elf/backtracesyms.c. It relies on _dl_addr(), which is defined in elf/dl-addr.c, to provide it with the symbol names. That ultimately calls determine_info(). If it can, it uses the the GNU hash table, which does not include local symbols by design:
49 /* We look at all symbol table entries referenced by the hash
50 table. */
…
60 /* The hash table never references local symbols so
61 we can omit that test here. */
If the GNU hash table isn't present, it falls back to standard hash table. This includes all the symbols, but the determine_info() code filters out all but the global symbols and weak symbols:
90 if ((ELFW(ST_BIND) (symtab->st_info) == STB_GLOBAL
91 || ELFW(ST_BIND) (symtab->st_info) == STB_WEAK)
To symbolicate the Objective-C function addresses, you would have to perform the look-up yourself and not filter out the local function symbols. Further, you would have to demangle the Objective-C function symbols to restore _c_TheObject___printTrace to +[TheObject _printTrace].

Answer 2

GNUstep's NSException implementation doesn't use backtrace, instead it uses libbfd (binary file descriptor). I think the function that actually does the work is called static void find_address, which you can view here. Using this trivial example, I get the results that follow.
#include <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#interface Test : NSObject {}
+ (void) test;
#end
#implementation Test
+ (void) test
{
Class GSStackTrace = objc_getClass("GSStackTrace");
id stack = [GSStackTrace currentStack];
for (int i = 0; i < [stack frameCount]; i++)
{
NSLog (#"%#", [[stack frameAt:i] function]);
}
}
#end
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
[Test test];
[pool release];
return 0;
}
Output (when compiled with debug symbols):
2010-10-18 14:14:46.188 a.out[29091] +[GSStackTrace currentStack]
2010-10-18 14:14:46.190 a.out[29091] +[Test test]
2010-10-18 14:14:46.190 a.out[29091] main
2010-10-18 14:14:46.190 a.out[29091] __libc_start_main
You may be able to pick apart GSStackTrace. It is a “private” class (that's why I need to use objc_getClass, you'll also get lots of unrecognised selector warnings), but it seems to contain all the code necessary to read Objective-C class names.
Tested on Ubuntu 9.04 with GNUstep configured with --enable-debug (so that GSFunctionInfo is included in the build).

Answer 3

I expect you'll need to ask the ObjC run time about the addresses to get symbol information. The addresses returned from backtrace() could probably be passed to something like object_getClass() to get the class, for example. I haven't tried any of this but it's where I'd look next in this case.