source lines while debugging a core dump - c++

In c or c++ While debugging a core dump,i.e., if we are left with a coredump file and try to debug using that core file is there a way we can see the last few lines of code before the dump occured.the stack trace only shows the function call.
for eg:during debugging a running process in dbx or gdb list command
list Display lines of a source file
will give the part of the code currently under execution.in the same way do we have the option while looking into a core dump?
i am working on solaris mdb

The list command in gdb should provide details of source code line numbers and the corresponding source listing from a core file if:
The executable was compiled with debug symbols enabled (eg. -g in gcc and g++)
A non-stripped version of the executable is available (ie. has not had the debug information removed by running strip)
The debugger is able to find the relevant source files
The debugger should still be able to provide file and line numbers even if it is unable to find the source files as the line number information forms a part of the debug symbols. This information should be available through the bt (backtrace) command, as well as the info symbol command.
Note that even if the core file was generated from a stripped executable, as long as you have access to a non-stripped version you can load that in gdb as well as specifying the core file.
Take a look at chapter 13 and 15 of the gdb manual to assist in giving gdb access to your source files.

If you compiled with -g option you can display source lines. In dbx you can use use command to set dbx source directories.
You can use list (l) command to display source lines.
See help command to learn how to use dbx and gdb commands.

If you have set your source path properly using use command in dbx or started it with -I option, then there's hardly any difference between debugging a core dump and a normal process when it comes to reading source lines.

Related

gdb list error "No such file or directory"

I'm currently running a file manager program that abruptly crashed with a segmentation fault and dumped a core file. So I used gdb to debug the core file as:
gdb /path/to/executable /path/to/core
The program which I was running is written in C++. When I ran GDB and tried to print the source lines using "list", I got the following error:
(gdb) bt
#0 0x0000000000554286 in
MyFSEventManager::AddEvent(wxFileSystemWatcherEvent&) ()
#1 0x00000000005ab2e8 in
MyGenericDirCtrl::OnFileWatcherEvent(wxFileSystemWatcherEvent&) ()
(gdb) f 0
#0 0x0000000000554286 in
MyFSEventManager::AddEvent(wxFileSystemWatcherEvent&) ()
(gdb) l
1 /build/glib2.0-prJhLS/glib2.0-2.48.2/./glib/gmain.c: No such file or directory.
Why does gdb say this "/build/glib2.0-prJhLS/glib2.0-2.48.2/./glib/gmain.c: No such file or directory." I do not hit this issue with some other programs that I've debugged using gdb.
The operating system used is Ubuntu 16.04 running on Oracle virtual box. I think may be the gdb symbols were not loaded. I'm not sure why since I compiled the program using the "-g" option. I really need to know the source lines where the code crashes via gdb.
Any suggestions?
EDIT: changes after suggestions from Employed Russian
I was compiling my main using "-g" option and linking it to "existing" object files which were obviously not compiled using "-g" so when the core dumped, I could not see the source for these files. So I went ahead and recompiled those files with "-g" option and reproduced the core dump. It's able to show me the source lines now.
Why does gdb say this "/build/glib2.0-prJhLS/glib2.0-2.48.2/./glib/gmain.c: No such file or directory."
Because you really don't have that file on your system.
I think may be the gdb symbols were not loaded
GDB did load debug symbols for glib, but not for your main executable.
I'm not sure why since I compiled the program using the "-g" option.
Since we don't have your compile and link lines, we can't tell exactly what's wrong, but some of the common issues are:
You have a "stray" -s or -Wl,-s on your link line (this strips debug info from the resulting binary).
You have -g when compiling your main.c, but not when compiling the source in which MyFSEventManager::AddEvent() is defined
P.S.
(gdb) bt
This doesn't seem to be the complete output from bt command. Always try to paste complete outputs as it makes helping easier :)

lldb : Unable to resolve breakpoint in Hello World example

I created a Hello World example in C++ and tried to debug it with lldb from the terminal on Mac OSX.
> lldb a.out
Current executable set to 'a.out' (x86_64).
I can set breakpoints on names (eg. 'main'), but not on line numbers. If I try
breakpoint set --file test.c --line 5
or
b test.c:5
I get
Breakpoint 1: no locations (pending).
WARNING: Unable to resolve breakpoint to any actual locations.
The file 'test.c' is located in the current folder. What goes wrong?
Acording to Dwarf Debugging Information Format, the line number, file location information are stored in the Dwarf format. Such information is what GDB used to set line number as a breakpoint.
Usually, the Dwarf format information is generated by compiler, such as GCC with the -g options. Please try with -g options to see whether it works.
Meanwhile, there also some other debug helpful options in GCC which might be more helpful to you, such as -g3, compiler will generate more detail information for debug, such as macros.

nacl-gdb fails to read .pexe?

Is nacl-gdb only for *.nexe and not *.pexe files? im following the guide at https://developers.google.com/native-client/devguide/devcycle/debugging#gdb
./$NACL_SDK_ROOT/toolchain/mac_x86_newlib/bin/x86_64-nacl-gdb
...
This GDB was configured as "--host=i386-apple-darwin10.8.0 --target=x86_64-nacl".
...
(gdb) nacl-manifest code.nmf
(gdb) nacl-irt pnacl/Release/code.pexe
`pnacl/Release/code.pexe': can't read symbols: File format not recognized.
The .pexe is not the final executable, and nacl-gdb does not understand its format. It's a target-independent "intermediate format" file that has to be translated by the browser to a native module before it can be executed and/or debugged.
You can debug .nexes produced by the PNaCl toolchain, by compiling all the way to a .nexe with debug information and then debugging that. In other words, just as you debug a .nexe produced by the gcc toolchains.

gdb do not show the right source code by the instruction -l

I have met a freaky problem during my internship. My work is to code with VTK in C++ and I worked on OSX 10.8.3.
When I want to debug my program, I ran the gdb and use instruction "file" to load my program, then I used "list" to show the source code to make a breakpoint by line number. Here goes the problem: this freaky gdb showed the source code of a VTK header file which I even hadn't included in my source code!
My program's name is read
I have tried to use gdb read then break read:15 to set a breakpoint but the gdb displayed "no source file named read" that is ridiculous!
I have noticed that gdb works well in my ubuntu 12.04 and when I use file read in linux's gdb, it just displayed
Reading symbols from /Users/apple/Dev/VTKRead/bin/bin/read...done.
but in my OSX 10.8.3's freaky gdb it displayed
Reading symbols for shared libraries ......... done
Reading symbols from /Users/apple/Dev/VTKRead/bin/bin/read...done.
I think that is the reason and I tried to change compiler to solve problem by install gcc4.8 in macport but cmake seems only accept the apple's gcc.
but the gdb displayed "no source file named read" that is ridiculous!
That is not rigiculous at all: you very likely don't have a source file called read. What you do have is probably called read.cc, or read.cpp, so try break read.cc:15.
That is my mistake: I didn't set the build tag to "debug" in ccmake, so the compiler didn't write the information into the file.

Need GLIBC debug information from rpmbuild of updated source

I'm working on RHEL WS 4.5.
I've obtained the glibc source rpm matching this system, opened it to get its contents using rpm2cpio.
Working in that tree, I've created a patch to mtrace.c (i want to add more stack backtrace levels) and incorporated it in the spec file and created a new set of RPMs including the debuginfo rpms.
I installed all of these on a test vm (created from the same RH base image) and can confirm that my changes are included.
But with more complex executions, I crash in mtrace.c ... but gdb can't find the debug information so I don't get line number info and I can't actually debug the failure.
Based on dates, I think I can confirm that the debug information is installed on the test system in /usr/src/debug/glibc-2.3.6/
I tried
sharedlibrary libc*
in gdb and it tells me the symbols are already loaded.
My test includes a locally built python and full symbols are found for python.
My sense is that perhaps glibc isn't being built under rpmbuild with debug enabled. I've reviewed the glibc.spec file and even built with
_enable_debug_packages
defined as 1 which looked like it might influence the result. My review of the configure scripts invoked during the rpmbuild build step didn't give me any hints.
Hmmmm .. just found /usr/lib/debug/lib/libc-2.3.4.so.debug
and /usr/lib/debug/lib/tls/i486/libc-2.3.4.so.debug
but both of these are reported as stripped by the file command.
It appears that you are installing non-matching RPMs:
/usr/src/debug/glibc-2.3.6
just found /usr/lib/debug/lib/libc-2.3.4.so.debug
There are not for the same version; there is no way they came from the same -debuginfo RPM.
both of these are reported as stripped by the file command.
These should not show as stripped. Either they were not built correctly, or your strip is busted.
Also note that you don't actually have to get all of this working to debug your problem. In the RPMBUILD directory, you should be able to find the glibc build directory, with full-debug libc.so.6. Just copy that library into your VM, and you wouldn't have to worry about the debuginfo RPM.
Try verifying that debug info for mtrace.c is indeed present. First see if the separate debug info for GLIBC knows about a compilation unit called mtrace.c:
$ eu-readelf -w /usr/lib/debug/lib64/libc-2.15.so.debug > t
$ grep mtrace t
name (strp) "mtrace.c"
name (strp) "mtrace"
1 0 0 0 mtrace.c
[10480] "mtrace.c"
[104bb] "mtrace"
[5052] symbol: mtrace, CUs: 446
Then see if GDB actually finds the source file from the glibc-debuginfo RPM:
(gdb) set pagination off
(gdb) start # pause your test program right after main()
(gdb) set logging on
Copying output to gdb.txt.
(gdb) info sources
Quit GDB then grep for mtrace in gdb.txt and you should find something like /usr/src/debug/glibc-2.15-a316c1f/malloc/mtrace.c
This works with GDB 7.4. I'm not sure the GDB version shipped with RHEL 4.5 supports all the command used above. Building upstream GDB from source is in fact easier than Python though.
When trying to add strack traces to mtrace, make sure you don't call malloc() directly or indirectly in the GLIBC malloc hooks.