calling operator<< in gdb

For me call operator<< ran without error, but didn't print. Turns out I needed a call to flush. Here's a useful function you can put in .gdbinit:

define str
    call (void)operator<<(std::cout, $arg0)
    call (void)std::cout.flush()
    printf "\n"
end

I have the following in my .gdbinit. The previous answers here did not work for me when the operator<< is a template or required a lot of typing to get the types right. This approach searches the symbol table to find the correct operator<<. This only works if the operators have been instantiated explicitly.

python
import gdb
import re
class LexicalCast(gdb.Command):
    def __init__(self):
        super(LexicalCast, self).__init__("lexical_cast", gdb.COMMAND_DATA)

    def matches(self, symbol, type, exact=True):
        params = symbol.find('('), symbol.find(')')
        if -1 in params: return False
        params = symbol[params[0]+1 : params[1]]
        if re.match("^%s, %s( const)?&?$"%(re.escape("std::ostream&"), re.escape(type)), params): return True
        if not exact and re.match("^%s, .*::%s( const)?&?$"%(re.escape("std::ostream&"), re.escape(type)), params): return True
        return False

    def invoke(self, arg, from_tty):
        value = gdb.parse_and_eval(arg)
        type = str(value.type.strip_typedefs().unqualified())
        # isn't unqualified() supposed to do that already?
        if type.startswith("const "): type = type[6:]
        if type.startswith("struct "): type = type[7:]
        if type.endswith(" &"): type = type[:-2]
        # there's probably a better way to browse the list of symbols ...
        shift_operators = gdb.execute("info functions operator<<", False, True).split('\n')  
        matching_operators = [ op for op in shift_operators if self.matches(op, type)]
        if not matching_operators:
            gdb.write("No operator<<(std::ostream&, const %s&) found in the symbols. Trying to find a match with additional namespace qualifiers.\n"%(type,))
            matching_operators = [ op for op in shift_operators if self.matches(op, type, False)]

        if not matching_operators:
            gdb.write("No operator<<(std::ostream&, const .*::%s&) found in the symbols. Did you forget to explicitly instantiate your operator?\n"%(type,))     
        else:
            if len(matching_operators) > 1:
                gdb.write("Found multiple operator<< matching this expression; trying to call each one of them...\n")                          
            for op in matching_operators:
                try:                     
                    op = op.split('  ', 1)[1][:-4] if op.endswith("@plt") else op.split(':', 1)[1].split('&', 1)[1].strip()[:-1]
                    gdb.execute("call (void)'%s'((std::cout), (%s))"%(op, arg))      
                    gdb.execute("call (void)std::cout.put('\\n')")
                    gdb.execute("call (void)std::cout.flush()")
                    break
                except Exception as e:
                    gdb.write("Could not invoke %s: %s\n"%(op, e))

LexicalCast()
end   

In GDB I use it like this:

(gdb) lex sector[0]
4: 1 ~ ([-3.00170 +/- 3.86e-6], [-1.73303 +/- 7.55e-8])
(gdb) lex 123
No operator<<(std::ostream&, const int&) found in the symbols. Did you explicitly instantiate that operator?

This is mostly a hack of course that likely breaks if you have changed how GDB prints info functions, but it works well for my purposes.