polyglot-debug

Debugger plugins that score a header chord instead of grabbing the first MZ.
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polyglot-debug

APE and other polyglot executables break GDB and LLDB because object-file plugins are greedy. The PE plugin sees MZ at offset 0 and claims the file. The ELF header sitting in a printf octal blob never gets a vote.

This repo patches that design:

1. Survey every ObjectFile / BFD target. Each returns a confidence score and the byte range it understood.

2. If more than one target scores high — a chord — a meta-plugin (ObjectFilePolyglot) owns the file.

3. The meta-plugin asks the process plugin (Linux ptrace, Windows, Darwin) which slice is live, then projects that layout into the symbol table.

That is parser theory, not a new UI. Stepping still looks like stepping.

Apply

LLDB (llvm-project, paths relative to lldb/):

git apply patches/lldb-objectfile-chord.patch

Then add plugin/ObjectFilePolyglot.cpp to the ObjectFile plugin CMake list (the patch expects ObjectFile/Polyglot/).

GDB: patches/gdb-bfd-survey.patch against binutils-gdb bfd/format.c.

Security

Scoring loops parse more of a hostile file than first-match. Keep the survey on the first 8 KiB plus each plugin’s existing magic probe. Do not follow unbounded overlay pointers during the survey pass.

License

MIT for this repo. LLVM and GNU patches keep their upstream licenses once applied.