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Page: Debugging using gdb (Windows, WSL2, Visual Studio Code mGBA)
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Ability Switcher via special Add A PokeVial Item Add Ability to Avoid Battle Damage in Debug Menu Add Ability to Swap Bikes Whenever Add Choice Specs Scarf hold item effects Add Description Submenu Add Difficulty Mode Add In‐Cart Rumble Add Nuzlocke Challenge Add PC Access in PokeNav Add Physical Special Split Add Sleep Mode Add Thief Ball Add a EV IV Stat Editor UI Add a debug menu Adding Multi region Support Adding Support for Connectivity with Other Hacks Whilst Maintaining Connectivity with Vanilla Adding Time Based Encounters Adding Walking Animations to All NPCs Adding a New Trainer Class Adding a New Trainer Front Picture Adding a Pokémon Type & Disabling the Mystery Type Adding new event object or overworld sprites All Trees Permanently Get Cut Allow All Pokemon to Evolve Without Trading Allow Both Latios and Latias Appear. Allow Feebas to be caught on any Valid Fishing Spot in Route 119 rather than only Three Allow Jumping Over Ledges with Acro Bike Allow Move Relearner to Teach Moves that Pre Evolutions Know Allow Running From Trainer Battles Allow running indoors Amulet Coin Effects If Anyone In Party is Holding It Automatically make the keyboard switch to lowercase after the first character Better White Out Money Calculation Button Press to Skip Copyright Screen Chain Fishing Change Enemy Trainer Parties Depending on Difficulty Change Someone's PC to Lanette's PC from the Start of the Game Change Starter Pokémon Change Time Based Evolution Times Change initial PC items Changing the Battle Music Depending on the Opponent Colored stats by nature in summary screen Converting to FR Tilesets Custom Battle Mugshots Custom Border Dimensions Debugging using gdb (Windows, WSL2, Visual Studio Code mGBA) Debugging using printf Disable Bag Use In Battle Disable Catching Pokemon Disable Pokémon animation on Birch's intro Pokémon Disabling Union Room check when entering Pokémon Centers Dynamic Trade Names Dynamic overworld palette system Enable the Reset RTC Feature Enable trade with FRLG without beating the game Expanding The Metatile Count Extra save space with three lines of code Faster HP Drain Feature Branches Fish Will Now Always Get on Hook Fix AI's Switch In Battle Fix Snow Weather Fixing the aspect ratio of the Pokémon logo on the title screen Forcing Battle Animations for Major Battles Full Screen Start Menu by Archie and Mudskip Gen 6 Exp Share Gen 6 style Exp. Share Alternative Option Get Match Calls Only If Caller Wants a Rematch Get Rid of Battery Run Dry Error Message Get Rid of Pokemon Disobeying You Holding Select Allows For A Second Register Item Home How the Game Works How to Support Savefile Backwards Compatibility How to add a new Pokémon species How to add a new ability How to add a new region map How to create a new regular trainer battle How to delete a map Implement Missing Text Function RESET_FONT Implementing Catch EXP Implementing ipatix's High Quality Audio Mixer Implementing the “textcolor” script command from FRLG and give object events their own text colour Improve Partner Battle Code Improve the Loading of Battle Terrain Improving the WaitForVBlank function Increase money limit Infinite TM usage Instead of Asking to Stop learning a New Move, You'll be Asked to Continue Learning Item Automatically Goes to PC if Bag is Full Keep the Camera from Making Waves LGPE Style Bonus Premier Balls Learn moves upon evolution List Menu Text Coloring Make Cleanse Tag Avoid All Wild Encounters and Usable If Held By Anyone in Your Party; Make PokeDoll Do the Same for Trainers Seeing You Make Daycare Faster at Leveling Pokémon Make Key Items That Cannot Be Used In The Field Not Show A Use or Register Option Make L Button Be Turbo A When L=A Option Is Set Make Ledge Jumps Check Collision Make Move Relearner Teach Egg Moves With A Flag Make Multiple Secret Bases Make Norman's Slaking Have Ability Intimidate Make Pokemon Not Heal When Going into PC Make Pokemon that Require a Fateful Encounter to be Legal to Always Be Set to Legal Make space for EWRAM Data for Summary screen Make the Bag Able to Hold 120 Items Instead of 30 Make the Person in the Intro Match the the Save File Map Based Trainer Battle Music Move Item Multipage Options Menu Name Rater Allows Traded Pokemon to be Renamed New Birch's Briefcase With Fully Custom Starters by Archie and Mudskip New Custom Menu Border Themes (Basic) New Main Menu UI With Mugshot by Archie and Mudskip New Options Plus ‐ Multipage Options Menu with Faster Text, HP‐EXP Bar Speeds and Metric Nickname your Pokémon from the party menu Not showing dex entries until getting the Pokédex Omnidirectional Jump Optimization ‐ Remove Expensive and Redundant `BuildColorMaps()` Function Option to Skip Copyright and Intro Overview: Items and their Effects Overview: The Party Menu Overview∶ The Game Loop Overview∶ The Task System Per Shop\Mart Item Prices Plural Giveitem Pokecenters Disregard Eggs Prompt for reusing Repels Push B in wild battle moves to Run Push B to Toggle Running Shoes Pushing B When Asked To Stop Learning Move Will Cancel Teaching The Move Quickly Run from a Battle by Holding Right While the Wild Pokémon's Name Appears Raise Odds of Catching a Pokemon by Pressing B When the Ball Shakes Random Info, Tips, and Tricks Reflections Remove 'Select' Sound From Specific Map Events Remove Warp Fadescreen Remove badge boosts Remove the backup save file Remove the extra save confirmation Remove the functionally redundant move grammar tables Removing the Animation Affines Repeated Field Medicine Use Reuse filler save space for Variables and Flags Revert Brendan May Sprites to Ruby Sapphire Set Metatile IDs From Another Map Set Up Item Balls on a Map Without Needing New Scripts Shifting to Pokémon Already in Battle Exits the Shift Menu Shiny Creation With a Flag Shop Items By Badge Count Show IVs EVs in Summary Screen Show Species That You're Switching For in the Party Menu Show Type Effectiveness In Battle Using Pre Existing Function and Disable in Option Menu Show a throbber animation while the game is saving Shuckle makes Berry Juice Something doesn't work I need help etc. Spawn Invisible Player Speedy Nurse Joy Spinda Second Frame Spot Addition Stair Warps Supplementary Scripting Macros Surfing Dismount Ground Effects Temporarily Replace Player or Enemy Party Pokemon The Basics of Scripting Toggle Trainer Sight Trainer Backsprite Editing Trainer Class Based Poké Balls Trainer Scripts Trainers No Longer Spin to Face You Right As You Pass Them Trigger Map Scripts By Flag Triple layer metatiles Tutorials Tweaking the count of health beeps Uniquely Shuffle Array Update Sitrus Berry's effect to Gen 4 standard Use HMs Without Any Pokemon in your Party Knowing Them Useful Modding Tools Useful Scripting Specials Why You Should (Almost) Always Be Using 32‐Bit Variables in Your Code Why should I use this over binary hacking
0 Debugging using gdb (Windows, WSL2, Visual Studio Code mGBA)
Hiram Anderson edited this page 2024-09-16 12:06:36 -06:00
Table of Contents

Sometimes DebugPrintf as shown in https://github.com/pret/pokeemerald/wiki/Debugging-using-printf just is not enough and we want actual source level debugging.

When developing in the C programming language we usually use gdb, the GNU Debugger. Luckily mGBA, a popular emulator, can run a gdb server for us.

Prerequisites

While you can probably setup gdb on native Windows or using any other build environment, WSL 2 is the most recommended, and this tutorial covers WSL 2.

Check that your Build Setup is Good.

Before continuing, make sure your setup will work. The easiest setup to get running to to have your code's repo live in Linux's directory rather than in Windows; so in ~/pokeemerald, rather than /mnt/c/User/<User>/Documents/pokeemerald. ~ is /home/<username>.
Do not copy the Windows path to the Linux path. cp -r /mnt/c/User/<User>/Documents/pokeemerald ~/pokeemerald will cause lots permissions issues. Instead, clone the GIT repo directly to ~.

If you'd like to look at the directory in explorer, then go to it in the WSL, and type explorer.exe .
After having the repo in Linux, open VSCode by running code . VSCode should open. In the extensions tab, install C/C++. I also have WSL and C/C++ Extension Pack installed.

Next, got to VSCode's terminal (Ctrl + `), and run make DINFO=1 modern -j$(nproc). If it makes the game, then you're good to continue.

Setting up Environment Variables

We need to communicate between Windows <--> WSL 2 over a network interface. WSL changes its IP Address every time you start it (or your computer) - We can get TODAYS_IP by retrieving it from Windows every time we start a shell. Run the following commands depending on the shell you are using. In case you are unsure, you are probably running bash. You should see your IP address (e.g. 172.30.0.1) and it can now be used as an environment variable.

Bash

echo "export MGBA_EXECUTABLE=/path/to/your/windows/mGBA.exe" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "export TODAYS_IP=$(ipconfig.exe | grep --binary-files=text 'vEthernet (WSL' -A4 | cut -d":" -f 2 | tail -n1 | sed -e 's/\s*//g')" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
echo $TODAYS_IP

Zsh

echo "export MGBA_EXECUTABLE=/path/to/your/windows/mGBA.exe" >> ~/.zshrc
echo "export TODAYS_IP=$(ipconfig.exe | grep --binary-files=text 'vEthernet (WSL' -A4 | cut -d":" -f 2 | tail -n1 | sed -e 's/\s*//g')" >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc
echo $TODAYS_IP

Make sure to change /path/to/your/windows/mGBA.exe to your actual mgba path, e.g. /mnt/c/Users/.../Documents/mGBA/mGBA.exe.

Setting up a Firewall rule

By default Windows blocks incoming traffic from WSL. Start up an elevated PowerShell (run PowerShell as Administrator in Windows) and run

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "WSL" -Direction Inbound -InterfaceAlias "vEthernet (WSL)"  -Action Allow

NOTE: This adds a rule to your Windows Firewall. Be aware that messing with your firewall is a potential security risk and make sure you know what you are doing.
NOTE2: This step needs to be done every time you restart your PC. Otherwise everything compiles and mGBA opens, but nothing plays.
NOTE3: If you're trying to set up the debugger and getting "connection timed out", the mGBA rule in the Windows firewall settings needs to be enabled for domain networks as well.

Setting up Visual Studio Code

Open up your project in Visual Studio Code and create .vscode/launch.json:

{
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Attach to mGBA",
            "type": "cppdbg",
            "request": "launch",
            "program": "${workspaceFolder}/pokeemerald_modern.elf",
            "args":[
                "target remote ${env:TODAYS_IP}:2345"
            ],
            "stopAtEntry": true,
            "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
            "environment": [],
            "externalConsole": false,
            "miDebuggerServerAddress": "${env:TODAYS_IP}:2345",
            "debugServerArgs": "${workspaceFolder}/pokeemerald_modern.elf",
            "serverStarted": "started-mgba-server",
            "linux": {
                "MIMode": "gdb",
                "miDebuggerPath": "/opt/devkitpro/devkitARM/bin/arm-none-eabi-gdb",
                "debugServerPath": "${workspaceFolder}/.vscode/mgba-gdb-wrapper.sh"
            }
        }
    ]
}

If you are not using devkitPro arm-none-eabi-gdb supply your version of it under miDebuggerPath.

Additionally create .vscode/tasks.json:

{
    "version": "2.0.0",
    "tasks": [
        {
            "label": "build_modern",
            "type": "shell",
            "command": "make",
            "args": [
                "DINFO=1",
                "modern",
                "-j$(nproc)"
            ],
            "group": {
                "kind": "build",
                "isDefault": true
            },
            "problemMatcher": [
                "$gcc"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Creating a launch wrapper

Create mgba-gdb-wrapper.sh in the .vscode folder of your project (so .gitignore will naturally ignore it):

#!/bin/bash

(
    sleep 4
    echo "started-mgba-server"
)&

"$MGBA_EXECUTABLE" $1 -g

Make it executable with chmod +x .vscode/mgba-gdb-wrapper.sh

Using the debugger

Set any breakpoint in your Visual Studio Code editor (e.g. by clicking on a line number so it has a red dot) and press F5 to build, run, and attach gdb. The program will halt at your breakpoint and you can investigate the environment.

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