Newer versions of GDB come with the nifty find command. The old version of GDB I have to use does not. It is also incapable of generating a proper stack trace for the platform it supposedly serves. But that’s a whole other story…

Anyway, I found a piece of code that almost does the same. I tweaked it a bit, fixed the stray bug ($x -> %p) and would like to never do it again. So here it is for my future reference and your indulgent.

define find
  set $start = (uint64 *) $arg0
  set $end = $start + $arg1
  set $pattern = (uint64) $arg2
  set $p = $start
  while $p < $end
    if (*(uint64 *) $p) == $pattern
      printf "pattern %p found at %pn", $pattern, $p
    end
    set $p++
  end
end