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Debugging With CLI

Icon LinkDebugging with CLI

The forc debug CLI enables debugging a live transaction on a running Fuel Client node.

Icon LinkAn example project

First, we need a project to debug, so create a new project using

forc new --script dbg_example && cd dbg_example

And then add some content to src/main.sw, for example:

script;
 
use std::logging::log;
 
fn factorial(n: u64) -> u64 {
    let mut result = 1;
    let mut counter = 0;
    while counter < n {
        counter = counter + 1;
        result = result * counter;
    }
    return result;
}
 
fn main() {
    log::<u64>(factorial(5)); // 120
}

Icon LinkBuilding and bytecode output

Now we are ready to build the project.

forc build

After this the resulting binary should be located at out/debug/dbg_example.bin. Because we are interested in the resulting bytecode, we can read that with:

forc parse-bytecode out/debug/dbg_example.bin

Which should give us something like


  half-word   byte   op                                    raw           notes
          0   0      JI { imm: 4 }                         90 00 00 04   jump to byte 16
          1   4      NOOP                                  47 00 00 00
          2   8      InvalidOpcode                         00 00 00 00   data section offset lo (0)
          3   12     InvalidOpcode                         00 00 00 44   data section offset hi (68)
          4   16     LW { ra: 63, rb: 12, imm: 1 }         5d fc c0 01
          5   20     ADD { ra: 63, rb: 63, rc: 12 }        10 ff f3 00
          6   24     MOVE { ra: 18, rb: 1 }                1a 48 10 00
          7   28     MOVE { ra: 17, rb: 0 }                1a 44 00 00
          8   32     LW { ra: 16, rb: 63, imm: 0 }         5d 43 f0 00
          9   36     LT { ra: 16, rb: 17, rc: 16 }         16 41 14 00
         10   40     JNZI { ra: 16, imm: 13 }              73 40 00 0d   conditionally jump to byte 52
         11   44     LOG { ra: 18, rb: 0, rc: 0, rd: 0 }   33 48 00 00
         12   48     RET { ra: 0 }                         24 00 00 00
         13   52     ADD { ra: 17, rb: 17, rc: 1 }         10 45 10 40
         14   56     MUL { ra: 18, rb: 18, rc: 17 }        1b 49 24 40
         15   60     JI { imm: 8 }                         90 00 00 08   jump to byte 32
         16   64     NOOP                                  47 00 00 00
         17   68     InvalidOpcode                         00 00 00 00
         18   72     InvalidOpcode                         00 00 00 05

We can recognize the while loop by the conditional jumps JNZI. The condition just before the first jump can be identified by LT instruction (for <). Some notable instructions that are generated only once in our code include MUL for multiplication and LOG {.., 0, 0, 0} from the log function.

Icon LinkSetting up the debugging

We can start up the debug infrastructure. On a new terminal session run fuel-core run --db-type in-memory --debug; we need to have that running because it actually executes the program. Now we can fire up the debugger itself: forc-debug. Now if everything is set up correctly, you should see the debugger prompt (>>). You can use help command to list available commands.

Now we would like to inspect the program while it's running. To do this, we first need to send the script to the executor, i.e. fuel-core. To do so, we need a transaction specification, tx.json. It looks something like this:

{
  "Script": {
    "body": {
      "script_gas_limit": 1000000,
      "script": [
        144,
        0,
        0,
        4,
        71,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        68,
        93,
        252,
        192,
        1,
        16,
        255,
        243,
        0,
        26,
        72,
        16,
        0,
        26,
        68,
        0,
        0,
        93,
        67,
        240,
        0,
        22,
        65,
        20,
        0,
        115,
        64,
        0,
        13,
        51,
        72,
        0,
        0,
        36,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        16,
        69,
        16,
        64,
        27,
        73,
        36,
        64,
        144,
        0,
        0,
        8,
        71,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        0,
        5
      ],
      "script_data": [],
      "receipts_root": "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"
    },
    "policies": {
      "bits": "MaxFee",
      "values": [
        0,
        0,
        0,
        0
      ]
    },
    "inputs": [
      {
        "CoinSigned": {
          "utxo_id": {
            "tx_id": "c49d65de61cf04588a764b557d25cc6c6b4bc0d7429227e2a21e61c213b3a3e2",
            "output_index": 18
          },
          "owner": "f1e92c42b90934aa6372e30bc568a326f6e66a1a0288595e6e3fbd392a4f3e6e",
          "amount": 10599410012256088000,
          "asset_id": "2cafad611543e0265d89f1c2b60d9ebf5d56ad7e23d9827d6b522fd4d6e44bc3",
          "tx_pointer": {
            "block_height": 0,
            "tx_index": 0
          },
          "witness_index": 0,
          "maturity": 0,
          "predicate_gas_used": null,
          "predicate": null,
          "predicate_data": null
        }
      }
    ],
    "outputs": [],
    "witnesses": [
      {
        "data": [
          156,
          254,
          34,
          102,
          65,
          96,
          133,
          170,
          254,
          105,
          147,
          35,
          196,
          199,
          179,
          133,
          132,
          240,
          208,
          149,
          11,
          46,
          30,
          96,
          44,
          91,
          121,
          195,
          145,
          184,
          159,
          235,
          117,
          82,
          135,
          41,
          84,
          154,
          102,
          61,
          61,
          16,
          99,
          123,
          58,
          173,
          75,
          226,
          219,
          139,
          62,
          33,
          41,
          176,
          16,
          18,
          132,
          178,
          8,
          125,
          130,
          169,
          32,
          108
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

However, the key script should contain the actual bytecode to execute, i.e. the contents of out/debug/dbg_example.bin as a JSON array. The following command can be used to generate it:

python3 -c 'print(list(open("out/debug/dbg_example.bin", "rb").read()))'

So now we replace the script array with the result, and save it as tx.json.

Icon LinkUsing the debugger

Now we can actually execute the script:

>> start_tx tx.json

Receipt: Log { id: 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000, ra: 120, rb: 0, rc: 0, rd: 0, pc: 10380, is: 10336 }
Receipt: Return { id: 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000, val: 0, pc: 10384, is: 10336 }
Receipt: ScriptResult { result: Success, gas_used: 60 }
Terminated

Looking at the first output line, we can see that it logged ra: 120 which is the correct return value for factorial(5). It also tells us that the execution terminated without hitting any breakpoints. That's unsurprising, because we haven't set up any. We can do so with breakpoint command:

>> breakpoint 0

>> start_tx tx.json

Receipt: ScriptResult { result: Success, gas_used: 0 }
Stopped on breakpoint at address 0 of contract 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Now we have stopped execution at the breakpoint on entry (address 0). We can now inspect the initial state of the VM.

>> register ggas

reg[0x9] = 1000000  # ggas

>> memory 0x10 0x8

 000010: e9 5c 58 86 c8 87 26 dd

However, that's not too interesting either, so let's just execute until the end, and then reset the VM to remove the breakpoints.

>> continue

Receipt: Log { id: 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000, ra: 120, rb: 0, rc: 0, rd: 0, pc: 10380, is: 10336 }
Receipt: Return { id: 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000, val: 0, pc: 10384, is: 10336 }
Terminated

>> reset

Next, we will setup a breakpoint to check the state on each iteration of the while loop. For instance, if we'd like to see what numbers get multiplied together, we could set up a breakpoint before the operation. The bytecode has only a single MUL instruction:

  half-word   byte   op                                    raw           notes
         14   56     MUL { ra: 18, rb: 18, rc: 17 }        1b 49 24 40

We can set a breakpoint on its address, at halfword-offset 14.

>>> breakpoint 14

>> start_tx tx.json

Receipt: ScriptResult { result: Success, gas_used: 9 }
Stopped on breakpoint at address 56 of contract 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Now we can inspect the inputs to multiply. Looking at the specification Icon Link tells us that the instruction MUL { ra: 18, rb: 18, rc: 17 } means reg[18] = reg[18] * reg[17]. So inspecting the inputs tells us that

>> r 18 17

reg[0x12] = 1        # reg18
reg[0x11] = 1        # reg17

So on the first round the numbers are 1 and 1, so we can continue to the next iteration:

>> c

Stopped on breakpoint at address 56 of contract 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

>> r 18 17

reg[0x12] = 1        # reg18
reg[0x11] = 2        # reg17

And the next one:

>> c

Stopped on breakpoint at address 56 of contract 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

>> r 18 17

reg[0x12] = 2        # reg18
reg[0x11] = 3        # reg17

And fourth one:

>> c

Stopped on breakpoint at address 56 of contract 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

>> r 18 17

reg[0x12] = 6        # reg18
reg[0x11] = 4        # reg17

And round 5:

>> c

Stopped on breakpoint at address 56 of contract 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

>> r 18 17

reg[0x12] = 24       # reg18
reg[0x11] = 5        # reg17

At this point we can look at the values

1718
11
21
32
46
524

From this we can clearly see that the left side, register 17 is the counter variable, and register 18 is result. Now the counter equals the given factorial function argument 5, and the loop terminates. So when we continue, the program finishes without encountering any more breakpoints:

>> c

Receipt: Log { id: 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000, ra: 120, rb: 0, rc: 0, rd: 0, pc: 10380, is: 10336 }
Receipt: Return { id: 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000, val: 0, pc: 10384, is: 10336 }
Terminated