So, I want to trace the messages that are flying around inside Interface Builder to see if I can figure out how NSTableColumn decides what bindings to expose. Ideally I'd have a little dynamic library with a logging version of objc_msgSend and I could get Interface Builder to run using that. I don't have that (yet). I found this old Usenet post from a NeXT engineer showing how to trace objc_msgSend using GDB. That will be much slower than smashing in a logging version of objc_msgSend, but it's better than nothing.
Of course, the GDB command in that Usenet post is for NEXTSTEP running on Intel. It'll probably work on MacOS X running on Intel, but my Powerbook has a PowerPC processor. Also, Apple introduced a new message-send function in Tiger, so you have to set two breakpoints. These commands work on MacOS X on PowerPC:
b objc_msgSend comm silent printf "%c[%s %s]\n", $r3&&((id)$r3)->isa->info&2?'+':'-', $r3?((id)$r3)->isa->name:"nil", $r4 cont end b objc_msgSend_rtp comm silent printf "%c[%s %s]\n", $r3&&((id)$r3)->isa->info&2?'+':'-', $r3?((id)$r3)->isa->name:"nil", $r4 cont end
Here's some sample output from GDB, tracing the first few messages sent in -[NSObject exposedBindings]:
-[NSTableColumn _bindingAdaptor] +[NSBinder binderClassesForObject:] +[NSBinder _allBinderClasses] +[NSDisplayPatternTitleBinder isUsableWithObject:] +[NSBox self] -[NSTableColumn isKindOfClass:] +[NSWindow self] -[NSTableColumn isKindOfClass:] +[NSWindowTemplate self] -[NSTableColumn isKindOfClass:] +[NSTableBinder isUsableWithObject:] +[NSTableView self] -[NSTableColumn isKindOfClass:] +[NSObjectParameterBinder isUsableWithObject:] +[NSObjectParameterBinder binderClassesSuperseded] +[NSArray array] +[NSArray allocWithZone:]