Programmatic way to get variable name in C?

Question

I am developing a tool to dump data from variables. I need to dump the variable name, and also the values.

My solution: Store variable name as a string, and print the "variable name", followed by its value.

Is there any programmatic way to know the variable name?

Answer 1

If your executable is compiled with debugging information, you may be able to get this info. If not, you're probably out of luck. So you're building a debugger? Why? Existing debuggers for c are very mature. Why not use existing tools instead of re-inventing the wheel?

Answer 2

In C, variable names exist during the compile step (and the link step, if the variable is global), but are not available at runtime. You must choose a solution that involves a literal string indicating the variable name.

Answer 3

There isn't a good way to do that from inside your program, I'm afraid (aside from Anacrolix' answer). I think the right solution to your problem is a debugger script. In most debuggers, you can even hook it up to run every time the debugger interrupts program execution (breakpoint, you hit ^C, etc) and get a snapshot of your program state every time you interact with it.

Answer 4

You could try something like this:

#define DUMP(varname) fprintf(stderr, "%s = %x", #varname, varname);

I used to use this header I wrote, when I was new to C, it might contain some useful ideas. For example this would allow you to print a C value and provide the format specifier in one (as well as some additional information):

#define TRACE(fmt, var) \
        (error_at_line(0, 0, __FILE__, __LINE__, "%s : " fmt, #var, var))

If you're using C++, you could use the type of the passed value and output it appropriately. I can provide a much more lucrative example for how to "pretty print" variable values if this is the case.

Answer 5

If you need to do this for arbitrary variables then you'll probably need to use a debugger API that the compiler or platform provides (like DbgHelp on Windows).

On some embedded systems I worked on we've needed to be able to display on command the values of certain important variables that are known ahead of time, and to do that all that we need is a simple Name/pointer table:

typedef 
struct vartab {
    char const* name;
    int * var;
} vartab;


vartab varTable[] = {
    { "foo", &foo },
    { "bar", &bar }
};

Then I just used a little routine that searches the table for the variable name in question, and dumps the name and the data pointed to by the pointer. If you need to dump data other than plain ints, you can extend the structure to also hold a printf-style formatter and change the pointer to be a void* and pass that junk to snprintf() or something to format the data.

Sometimes I'll also use a macro that helps build the table (possibly also declaring the variable). But to be honest, I think that that really just makes it more complex to understand (especially for someone new joining the project - they often have a small "WTF?" moment) and doesn't really simplify things much.

Answer 6

I actually have some code which may do what you want. It uses the preprocessor to stringize the variable name to allow you to print it out. It dumps both the variable name and value (based on the type) and the memory layout for that variable. The following program shows how it's done:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

static void dumpMem (unsigned char *p, unsigned int s) {
    int i;
    unsigned char c[0x10];
    printf (">>      ");
    for (i = 0; i < 0x10; i++) printf (" +%x",i);
    printf (" +");
    for (i = 0; i < 0x10; i++) printf ("%x",i);
    printf ("\n");
    for (i = 0; i < ((s + 15) & 0xfff0); i++) {
        if ((i % 0x10) == 0) {
            if (i != 0) printf ("  %*.*s\n", 0x10, 0x10, c);
            printf (">> %04x ",i);
        }
        if (i < s) {
            printf (" %02x", p[i]);
            c[i & 0xf] = ((p[i] < 0x20) || (p[i] > 0x7e)) ? '.' : p[i];
        } else {
            printf ("   ");
            c[i & 0xf] = ' ';
        }
    }
    printf ("  %*.*s\n", 0x10, 0x10, c);
}
#define DUMPINT(x) do{printf("%s: %d\n",#x,x);dumpMem((char*)(&x),sizeof(int));}while(0)
#define DUMPSTR(x) do{printf("%s: %s\n",#x,x);dumpMem(x,strlen(x));}while(0)
#define DUMPMEM(x,s) do{printf("%s:\n",#x);dumpMem((char*)(&x),s);}while(0)

typedef struct {
    char c;
    int i;
    char c2[6];
} tStruct;

int main (void) {
    int i = 42;
    char *s = "Hello there, my name is Pax!";
    tStruct z;
    z.c = 'a'; z.i = 42; strcpy (z.c2,"Hello");

    DUMPINT (i);
    DUMPSTR (s);
    DUMPMEM (z,sizeof(z));

    return 0;
}

This outputs:

i: 42
>>       +0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +a +b +c +d +e +f +0123456789abcdef
>> 0000  2a 00 00 00                                      *...
s: Hello there, my name is Pax!
>>       +0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +a +b +c +d +e +f +0123456789abcdef
>> 0000  48 65 6c 6c 6f 20 74 68 65 72 65 2c 20 6d 79 20  Hello there, my
>> 0010  6e 61 6d 65 20 69 73 20 50 61 78 21              name is Pax!
z:
>>       +0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +a +b +c +d +e +f +0123456789abcdef
>> 0000  61 b6 16 61 2a 00 00 00 48 65 6c 6c 6f 00 0d 61  a..a*...Hello..a

And, if you're wondering about the sanity of do {...} while (0) in the macros, that's to enable it to be placed anywhere in the code without having to worry about whether you have enough braces surrounding it.