Debugging the compiler

This chapter contains a few tips to debug the compiler. These tips aim to be useful no matter what you are working on. Some of the other chapters have advice about specific parts of the compiler (e.g. the Queries Debugging and Testing chapter or the LLVM Debugging chapter).

Configuring the compiler

By default, rustc is built without most debug information. To enable debug info, set debug = true in your config.toml.

Setting debug = true turns on many different debug options (e.g., debug-assertions, debug-logging, etc.) which can be individually tweaked if you want to, but many people simply set debug = true.

If you want to use GDB to debug rustc, please set config.toml with options:

[rust]
debug = true
debuginfo-level = 2

NOTE: This will use a lot of disk space (upwards of 35GB), and will take a lot more compile time. With debuginfo-level = 1 (the default when debug = true), you will be able to track the execution path, but will lose the symbol information for debugging.

The default configuration will enable symbol-mangling-version v0. This requires at least GDB v10.2, otherwise you need to disable new symbol-mangling-version in config.toml.

[rust]
new-symbol-mangling = false

See the comments in config.example.toml for more info.

You will need to rebuild the compiler after changing any configuration option.

Suppressing the ICE file

By default, if rustc encounters an Internal Compiler Error (ICE) it will dump the ICE contents to an ICE file within the current working directory named rustc-ice-<timestamp>-<pid>.txt. If this is not desirable, you can prevent the ICE file from being created with RUSTC_ICE=0.

Getting a backtrace

When you have an ICE (panic in the compiler), you can set RUST_BACKTRACE=1 to get the stack trace of the panic! like in normal Rust programs. IIRC backtraces don't work on MinGW, sorry. If you have trouble or the backtraces are full of unknown, you might want to find some way to use Linux, Mac, or MSVC on Windows.

In the default configuration (without debug set to true), you don't have line numbers enabled, so the backtrace looks like this:

stack backtrace:
   0: std::sys::imp::backtrace::tracing::imp::unwind_backtrace
   1: std::sys_common::backtrace::_print
   2: std::panicking::default_hook::{{closure}}
   3: std::panicking::default_hook
   4: std::panicking::rust_panic_with_hook
   5: std::panicking::begin_panic
   (~~~~ LINES REMOVED BY ME FOR BREVITY ~~~~)
  32: rustc_typeck::check_crate
  33: <std::thread::local::LocalKey<T>>::with
  34: <std::thread::local::LocalKey<T>>::with
  35: rustc::ty::context::TyCtxt::create_and_enter
  36: rustc_driver::driver::compile_input
  37: rustc_driver::run_compiler

If you set debug = true, you will get line numbers for the stack trace. Then the backtrace will look like this:

stack backtrace:
   (~~~~ LINES REMOVED BY ME FOR BREVITY ~~~~)
             at /home/user/rust/compiler/rustc_typeck/src/check/cast.rs:110
   7: rustc_typeck::check::cast::CastCheck::check
             at /home/user/rust/compiler/rustc_typeck/src/check/cast.rs:572
             at /home/user/rust/compiler/rustc_typeck/src/check/cast.rs:460
             at /home/user/rust/compiler/rustc_typeck/src/check/cast.rs:370
   (~~~~ LINES REMOVED BY ME FOR BREVITY ~~~~)
  33: rustc_driver::driver::compile_input
             at /home/user/rust/compiler/rustc_driver/src/driver.rs:1010
             at /home/user/rust/compiler/rustc_driver/src/driver.rs:212
  34: rustc_driver::run_compiler
             at /home/user/rust/compiler/rustc_driver/src/lib.rs:253

-Z flags

The compiler has a bunch of -Z * flags. These are unstable flags that are only enabled on nightly. Many of them are useful for debugging. To get a full listing of -Z flags, use -Z help.

One useful flag is -Z verbose-internals, which generally enables printing more info that could be useful for debugging.

Right below you can find elaborate explainers on a selected few.

Getting a backtrace for errors

If you want to get a backtrace to the point where the compiler emits an error message, you can pass the -Z treat-err-as-bug=n, which will make the compiler panic on the nth error. If you leave off =n, the compiler will assume 1 for n and thus panic on the first error it encounters.

For example:

$ cat error.rs

fn main() {
    1 + ();
}

$ rustc +stage1 error.rs
error[E0277]: cannot add `()` to `{integer}`
 --> error.rs:2:7
  |
2 |       1 + ();
  |         ^ no implementation for `{integer} + ()`
  |
  = help: the trait `Add<()>` is not implemented for `{integer}`

error: aborting due to previous error

Now, where does the error above come from?

$ RUST_BACKTRACE=1 rustc +stage1 error.rs -Z treat-err-as-bug
error[E0277]: the trait bound `{integer}: std::ops::Add<()>` is not satisfied
 --> error.rs:2:7
  |
2 |     1 + ();
  |       ^ no implementation for `{integer} + ()`
  |
  = help: the trait `std::ops::Add<()>` is not implemented for `{integer}`

error: internal compiler error: unexpected panic

note: the compiler unexpectedly panicked. this is a bug.

note: we would appreciate a bug report: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#bug-reports

note: rustc 1.24.0-dev running on x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu

note: run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=1` for a backtrace

thread 'rustc' panicked at 'encountered error with `-Z treat_err_as_bug',
/home/user/rust/compiler/rustc_errors/src/lib.rs:411:12
note: Some details are omitted, run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=full` for a verbose
backtrace.
stack backtrace:
  (~~~ IRRELEVANT PART OF BACKTRACE REMOVED BY ME ~~~)
   7: rustc::traits::error_reporting::<impl rustc::infer::InferCtxt<'a, 'tcx>>
             ::report_selection_error
             at /home/user/rust/compiler/rustc_middle/src/traits/error_reporting.rs:823
   8: rustc::traits::error_reporting::<impl rustc::infer::InferCtxt<'a, 'tcx>>
             ::report_fulfillment_errors
             at /home/user/rust/compiler/rustc_middle/src/traits/error_reporting.rs:160
             at /home/user/rust/compiler/rustc_middle/src/traits/error_reporting.rs:112
   9: rustc_typeck::check::FnCtxt::select_obligations_where_possible
             at /home/user/rust/compiler/rustc_typeck/src/check/mod.rs:2192
  (~~~ IRRELEVANT PART OF BACKTRACE REMOVED BY ME ~~~)
  36: rustc_driver::run_compiler
             at /home/user/rust/compiler/rustc_driver/src/lib.rs:253

Cool, now I have a backtrace for the error!

Debugging delayed bugs

The -Z eagerly-emit-delayed-bugs option makes it easy to debug delayed bugs. It turns them into normal errors, i.e. makes them visible. This can be used in combination with -Z treat-err-as-bug to stop at a particular delayed bug and get a backtrace.

Getting the error creation location

-Z track-diagnostics can help figure out where errors are emitted. It uses #[track_caller] for this and prints its location alongside the error:

$ RUST_BACKTRACE=1 rustc +stage1 error.rs -Z track-diagnostics
error[E0277]: cannot add `()` to `{integer}`
 --> src\error.rs:2:7
  |
2 |     1 + ();
  |       ^ no implementation for `{integer} + ()`
-Ztrack-diagnostics: created at compiler/rustc_trait_selection/src/traits/error_reporting/mod.rs:638:39
  |
  = help: the trait `Add<()>` is not implemented for `{integer}`
  = help: the following other types implement trait `Add<Rhs>`:
            <&'a f32 as Add<f32>>
            <&'a f64 as Add<f64>>
            <&'a i128 as Add<i128>>
            <&'a i16 as Add<i16>>
            <&'a i32 as Add<i32>>
            <&'a i64 as Add<i64>>
            <&'a i8 as Add<i8>>
            <&'a isize as Add<isize>>
          and 48 others

For more information about this error, try `rustc --explain E0277`.

This is similar but different to -Z treat-err-as-bug:

  • it will print the locations for all errors emitted
  • it does not require a compiler built with debug symbols
  • you don't have to read through a big stack trace.

Getting logging output

The compiler uses the tracing crate for logging.

For details see the guide section on tracing

Narrowing (Bisecting) Regressions

The cargo-bisect-rustc tool can be used as a quick and easy way to find exactly which PR caused a change in rustc behavior. It automatically downloads rustc PR artifacts and tests them against a project you provide until it finds the regression. You can then look at the PR to get more context on why it was changed. See this tutorial on how to use it.

Downloading Artifacts from Rust's CI

The rustup-toolchain-install-master tool by kennytm can be used to download the artifacts produced by Rust's CI for a specific SHA1 -- this basically corresponds to the successful landing of some PR -- and then sets them up for your local use. This also works for artifacts produced by @bors try. This is helpful when you want to examine the resulting build of a PR without doing the build yourself.

#[rustc_*] TEST attributes

The compiler defines a whole lot of internal (perma-unstable) attributes some of which are useful for debugging by dumping extra compiler-internal information. These are prefixed with rustc_ and are gated behind the internal feature rustc_attrs (enabled via e.g. #![feature(rustc_attrs)]).

For a complete and up to date list, see builtin_attrs. More specifically, the ones marked TEST. Here are some notable ones:

AttributeDescription
rustc_def_pathDumps the def_path_str of an item.
rustc_dump_def_parentsDumps the chain of DefId parents of certain definitions.
rustc_dump_item_boundsDumps the item_bounds of an item.
rustc_dump_predicatesDumps the predicates_of an item.
rustc_dump_vtable
rustc_hidden_type_of_opaquesDumps the hidden type of each opaque types in the crate.
rustc_layoutSee this section.
rustc_object_lifetime_defaultDumps the object lifetime defaults of an item.
rustc_outlivesDumps implied bounds of an item. More precisely, the inferred_outlives_of an item.
rustc_regionsDumps NLL closure region requirements.
rustc_symbol_nameDumps the mangled & demangled symbol_name of an item.
rustc_variancesDumps the variances of an item.

Right below you can find elaborate explainers on a selected few.

Formatting Graphviz output (.dot files)

Some compiler options for debugging specific features yield graphviz graphs - e.g. the #[rustc_mir(borrowck_graphviz_postflow="suffix.dot")] attribute dumps various borrow-checker dataflow graphs.

These all produce .dot files. To view these files, install graphviz (e.g. apt-get install graphviz) and then run the following commands:

$ dot -T pdf maybe_init_suffix.dot > maybe_init_suffix.pdf
$ firefox maybe_init_suffix.pdf # Or your favorite pdf viewer

Debugging type layouts

The internal attribute #[rustc_layout] can be used to dump the Layout of the type it is attached to. For example:

#![allow(unused)]
#![feature(rustc_attrs)]

fn main() {
#[rustc_layout(debug)]
type T<'a> = &'a u32;
}

Will emit the following:

error: layout_of(&'a u32) = Layout {
    fields: Primitive,
    variants: Single {
        index: 0,
    },
    abi: Scalar(
        Scalar {
            value: Pointer,
            valid_range: 1..=18446744073709551615,
        },
    ),
    largest_niche: Some(
        Niche {
            offset: Size {
                raw: 0,
            },
            scalar: Scalar {
                value: Pointer,
                valid_range: 1..=18446744073709551615,
            },
        },
    ),
    align: AbiAndPrefAlign {
        abi: Align {
            pow2: 3,
        },
        pref: Align {
            pow2: 3,
        },
    },
    size: Size {
        raw: 8,
    },
}
 --> src/lib.rs:4:1
  |
4 | type T<'a> = &'a u32;
  | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

error: aborting due to previous error

Configuring CodeLLDB for debugging rustc

If you are using VSCode, and have edited your config.toml to request debugging level 1 or 2 for the parts of the code you're interested in, then you should be able to use the CodeLLDB extension in VSCode to debug it.

Here is a sample launch.json file, being used to run a stage 1 compiler direct from the directory where it is built (does not have to be "installed"):

// .vscode/launch.json
{
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
      {
        "type": "lldb",
        "request": "launch",
        "name": "Launch",
        "args": [],  // array of string command-line arguments to pass to compiler
        "program": "${workspaceFolder}/build/host/stage1/bin/rustc",
        "windows": {  // applicable if using windows
            "program": "${workspaceFolder}/build/host/stage1/bin/rustc.exe"
        },
        "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",  // current working directory at program start
        "stopOnEntry": false,
        "sourceLanguages": ["rust"]
      }
    ]
  }