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<title>Debugging with GDB: Context management</title>

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<a name="Context-management"></a>
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<p>
Next: <a href="Asynchronous-and-non_002dstop-modes.html#Asynchronous-and-non_002dstop-modes" accesskey="n" rel="next">Asynchronous and non-stop modes</a>, Up: <a href="GDB_002fMI-General-Design.html#GDB_002fMI-General-Design" accesskey="u" rel="up">GDB/MI General Design</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Concept-Index.html#Concept-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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<hr>
<a name="Context-management-1"></a>
<h4 class="subsection">27.1.1 Context management</h4>

<a name="Threads-and-Frames"></a>
<h4 class="subsubsection">27.1.1.1 Threads and Frames</h4>

<p>In most cases when <small>GDB</small> accesses the target, this access is
done in context of a specific thread and frame (see <a href="Frames.html#Frames">Frames</a>).
Often, even when accessing global data, the target requires that a thread
be specified.  The CLI interface maintains the selected thread and frame,
and supplies them to target on each command.  This is convenient,
because a command line user would not want to specify that information
explicitly on each command, and because user interacts with
<small>GDB</small> via a single terminal, so no confusion is possible as 
to what thread and frame are the current ones.
</p>
<p>In the case of MI, the concept of selected thread and frame is less
useful.  First, a frontend can easily remember this information
itself.  Second, a graphical frontend can have more than one window,
each one used for debugging a different thread, and the frontend might
want to access additional threads for internal purposes.  This
increases the risk that by relying on implicitly selected thread, the
frontend may be operating on a wrong one.  Therefore, each MI command
should explicitly specify which thread and frame to operate on.  To
make it possible, each MI command accepts the &lsquo;<samp>--thread</samp>&rsquo; and
&lsquo;<samp>--frame</samp>&rsquo; options, the value to each is <small>GDB</small> identifier
for thread and frame to operate on.
</p>
<p>Usually, each top-level window in a frontend allows the user to select
a thread and a frame, and remembers the user selection for further
operations.  However, in some cases <small>GDB</small> may suggest that the
current thread be changed.  For example, when stopping on a breakpoint
it is reasonable to switch to the thread where breakpoint is hit.  For
another example, if the user issues the CLI &lsquo;<samp>thread</samp>&rsquo; command via
the frontend, it is desirable to change the frontend&rsquo;s selected thread to the
one specified by user.  <small>GDB</small> communicates the suggestion to
change current thread using the &lsquo;<samp>=thread-selected</samp>&rsquo; notification.
No such notification is available for the selected frame at the moment.
</p>
<p>Note that historically, MI shares the selected thread with CLI, so 
frontends used the <code>-thread-select</code> to execute commands in the
right context.  However, getting this to work right is cumbersome.  The
simplest way is for frontend to emit <code>-thread-select</code> command
before every command.  This doubles the number of commands that need
to be sent.  The alternative approach is to suppress <code>-thread-select</code>
if the selected thread in <small>GDB</small> is supposed to be identical to the
thread the frontend wants to operate on.  However, getting this
optimization right can be tricky.  In particular, if the frontend
sends several commands to <small>GDB</small>, and one of the commands changes the
selected thread, then the behaviour of subsequent commands will
change.  So, a frontend should either wait for response from such
problematic commands, or explicitly add <code>-thread-select</code> for
all subsequent commands.  No frontend is known to do this exactly
right, so it is suggested to just always pass the &lsquo;<samp>--thread</samp>&rsquo; and
&lsquo;<samp>--frame</samp>&rsquo; options.
</p>
<a name="Language"></a>
<h4 class="subsubsection">27.1.1.2 Language</h4>

<p>The execution of several commands depends on which language is selected.
By default, the current language (see <a href="Show.html#show-language">show language</a>) is used.
But for commands known to be language-sensitive, it is recommended
to use the &lsquo;<samp>--language</samp>&rsquo; option.  This option takes one argument,
which is the name of the language to use while executing the command.
For instance:
</p>
<div class="smallexample">
<pre class="smallexample">-data-evaluate-expression --language c &quot;sizeof (void*)&quot;
^done,value=&quot;4&quot;
(gdb) 
</pre></div>

<p>The valid language names are the same names accepted by the
&lsquo;<samp>set language</samp>&rsquo; command (see <a href="Manually.html#Manually">Manually</a>), excluding &lsquo;<samp>auto</samp>&rsquo;,
&lsquo;<samp>local</samp>&rsquo; or &lsquo;<samp>unknown</samp>&rsquo;.
</p>
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Next: <a href="Asynchronous-and-non_002dstop-modes.html#Asynchronous-and-non_002dstop-modes" accesskey="n" rel="next">Asynchronous and non-stop modes</a>, Up: <a href="GDB_002fMI-General-Design.html#GDB_002fMI-General-Design" accesskey="u" rel="up">GDB/MI General Design</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Concept-Index.html#Concept-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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