C++ display stack trace on exception - c++

I want to have a way to report the stack trace to the user if an exception is thrown. What is the best way to do this? Does it take huge amounts of extra code?
To answer questions:
I'd like it to be portable if possible. I want information to pop up, so the user can copy the stack trace and email it to me if an error comes up.

Andrew Grant's answer does not help getting a stack trace of the throwing function, at least not with GCC, because a throw statement does not save the current stack trace on its own, and the catch handler won't have access to the stack trace at that point any more.
The only way - using GCC - to solve this is to make sure to generate a stack trace at the point of the throw instruction, and save that with the exception object.
This method requires, of course, that every code that throws an exception uses that particular Exception class.
Update 11 July 2017: For some helpful code, take a look at cahit beyaz's answer, which points to http://stacktrace.sourceforge.net - I haven't used it yet but it looks promising.

It depends which platform.
On GCC it's pretty trivial, see this post for more details.
On MSVC then you can use the StackWalker library that handles all of the underlying API calls needed for Windows.
You'll have to figure out the best way to integrate this functionality into your app, but the amount of code you need to write should be minimal.

If you are using Boost 1.65 or higher, you can use boost::stacktrace:
#include <boost/stacktrace.hpp>
// ... somewhere inside the bar(int) function that is called recursively:
std::cout << boost::stacktrace::stacktrace();

I would like to add a standard library option (i.e. cross-platform) how to generate exception backtraces, which has become available with C++11:
Use std::nested_exception and std::throw_with_nested
This won't give you a stack unwind, but in my opinion the next best thing.
It is described on StackOverflow here and here, how you can get a backtrace on your exceptions inside your code without need for a debugger or cumbersome logging, by simply writing a proper exception handler which will rethrow nested exceptions.
Since you can do this with any derived exception class, you can add a lot of information to such a backtrace!
You may also take a look at my MWE on GitHub, where a backtrace would look something like this:
Library API: Exception caught in function 'api_function'
Backtrace:
~/Git/mwe-cpp-exception/src/detail/Library.cpp:17 : library_function failed
~/Git/mwe-cpp-exception/src/detail/Library.cpp:13 : could not open file "nonexistent.txt"

Unix: backtrace
Mac: backtrace
Windows: CaptureBackTrace

If you are using C++ and don't want/can't use Boost, you can print backtrace with demangled names using the following code [link to the original site].
Note, this solution is specific to Linux. It uses GNU's libc functions backtrace()/backtrace_symbols() (from execinfo.h) to get the backtraces and then uses __cxa_demangle() (from cxxabi.h) for demangling the backtrace symbol names.
// stacktrace.h (c) 2008, Timo Bingmann from http://idlebox.net/
// published under the WTFPL v2.0
#ifndef _STACKTRACE_H_
#define _STACKTRACE_H_
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <execinfo.h>
#include <cxxabi.h>
/** Print a demangled stack backtrace of the caller function to FILE* out. */
static inline void print_stacktrace(FILE *out = stderr, unsigned int max_frames = 63)
{
fprintf(out, "stack trace:\n");
// storage array for stack trace address data
void* addrlist[max_frames+1];
// retrieve current stack addresses
int addrlen = backtrace(addrlist, sizeof(addrlist) / sizeof(void*));
if (addrlen == 0) {
fprintf(out, " <empty, possibly corrupt>\n");
return;
}
// resolve addresses into strings containing "filename(function+address)",
// this array must be free()-ed
char** symbollist = backtrace_symbols(addrlist, addrlen);
// allocate string which will be filled with the demangled function name
size_t funcnamesize = 256;
char* funcname = (char*)malloc(funcnamesize);
// iterate over the returned symbol lines. skip the first, it is the
// address of this function.
for (int i = 1; i < addrlen; i++)
{
char *begin_name = 0, *begin_offset = 0, *end_offset = 0;
// find parentheses and +address offset surrounding the mangled name:
// ./module(function+0x15c) [0x8048a6d]
for (char *p = symbollist[i]; *p; ++p)
{
if (*p == '(')
begin_name = p;
else if (*p == '+')
begin_offset = p;
else if (*p == ')' && begin_offset) {
end_offset = p;
break;
}
}
if (begin_name && begin_offset && end_offset
&& begin_name < begin_offset)
{
*begin_name++ = '\0';
*begin_offset++ = '\0';
*end_offset = '\0';
// mangled name is now in [begin_name, begin_offset) and caller
// offset in [begin_offset, end_offset). now apply
// __cxa_demangle():
int status;
char* ret = abi::__cxa_demangle(begin_name,
funcname, &funcnamesize, &status);
if (status == 0) {
funcname = ret; // use possibly realloc()-ed string
fprintf(out, " %s : %s+%s\n",
symbollist[i], funcname, begin_offset);
}
else {
// demangling failed. Output function name as a C function with
// no arguments.
fprintf(out, " %s : %s()+%s\n",
symbollist[i], begin_name, begin_offset);
}
}
else
{
// couldn't parse the line? print the whole line.
fprintf(out, " %s\n", symbollist[i]);
}
}
free(funcname);
free(symbollist);
}
#endif // _STACKTRACE_H_
HTH!

AFAIK libunwind is quite portable and so far I haven't found anything easier to use.

I recommend http://stacktrace.sourceforge.net/ project. It support Windows, Mac OS and also Linux

Since the stack is already unwound when entering the catch block, the solution in my case was to not catch certain exceptions which then lead to a SIGABRT. In the signal handler for SIGABRT I then fork() and execl() either gdb (in debug builds) or Google breakpads stackwalk (in release builds). Also I try to only use signal handler safe functions.
GDB:
static const char BACKTRACE_START[] = "<2>--- backtrace of entire stack ---\n";
static const char BACKTRACE_STOP[] = "<2>--- backtrace finished ---\n";
static char *ltrim(char *s)
{
while (' ' == *s) {
s++;
}
return s;
}
void Backtracer::print()
{
int child_pid = ::fork();
if (child_pid == 0) {
// redirect stdout to stderr
::dup2(2, 1);
// create buffer for parent pid (2+16+1 spaces to allow up to a 64 bit hex parent pid)
char pid_buf[32];
const char* stem = " ";
const char* s = stem;
char* d = &pid_buf[0];
while (static_cast<bool>(*s))
{
*d++ = *s++;
}
*d-- = '\0';
char* hexppid = d;
// write parent pid to buffer and prefix with 0x
int ppid = getppid();
while (ppid != 0) {
*hexppid = ((ppid & 0xF) + '0');
if(*hexppid > '9') {
*hexppid += 'a' - '0' - 10;
}
--hexppid;
ppid >>= 4;
}
*hexppid-- = 'x';
*hexppid = '0';
// invoke GDB
char name_buf[512];
name_buf[::readlink("/proc/self/exe", &name_buf[0], 511)] = 0;
ssize_t r = ::write(STDERR_FILENO, &BACKTRACE_START[0], sizeof(BACKTRACE_START));
(void)r;
::execl("/usr/bin/gdb",
"/usr/bin/gdb", "--batch", "-n", "-ex", "thread apply all bt full", "-ex", "quit",
&name_buf[0], ltrim(&pid_buf[0]), nullptr);
::exit(1); // if GDB failed to start
} else if (child_pid == -1) {
::exit(1); // if forking failed
} else {
// make it work for non root users
if (0 != getuid()) {
::prctl(PR_SET_PTRACER, PR_SET_PTRACER_ANY, 0, 0, 0);
}
::waitpid(child_pid, nullptr, 0);
ssize_t r = ::write(STDERR_FILENO, &BACKTRACE_STOP[0], sizeof(BACKTRACE_STOP));
(void)r;
}
}
minidump_stackwalk:
static bool dumpCallback(const google_breakpad::MinidumpDescriptor& descriptor, void* context, bool succeeded)
{
int child_pid = ::fork();
if (child_pid == 0) {
::dup2(open("/dev/null", O_WRONLY), 2); // ignore verbose output on stderr
ssize_t r = ::write(STDOUT_FILENO, &MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_START[0], sizeof(MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_START));
(void)r;
::execl("/usr/bin/minidump_stackwalk", "/usr/bin/minidump_stackwalk", descriptor.path(), "/usr/share/breakpad-syms", nullptr);
::exit(1); // if minidump_stackwalk failed to start
} else if (child_pid == -1) {
::exit(1); // if forking failed
} else {
::waitpid(child_pid, nullptr, 0);
ssize_t r = ::write(STDOUT_FILENO, &MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_STOP[0], sizeof(MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_STOP));
(void)r;
}
::remove(descriptor.path()); // this is not signal safe anymore but should still work
return succeeded;
}
Edit: To make it work for breakpad I also had to add this:
std::set_terminate([]()
{
ssize_t r = ::write(STDERR_FILENO, EXCEPTION, sizeof(EXCEPTION));
(void)r;
google_breakpad::ExceptionHandler::WriteMinidump(std::string("/tmp"), dumpCallback, NULL);
exit(1); // avoid creating a second dump by not calling std::abort
});
Source: How to get a stack trace for C++ using gcc with line number information? and Is it possible to attach gdb to a crashed process (a.k.a "just-in-time" debugging)

on linux with g++ check out this lib
https://sourceforge.net/projects/libcsdbg
it does all the work for you

On Windows, check out BugTrap. Its not longer at the original link, but its still available on CodeProject.

I have a similar problem, and though I like portability, I only need gcc support. In gcc, execinfo.h and the backtrace calls are available. To demangle the function names, Mr. Bingmann has a nice piece of code. To dump a backtrace on an exception, I create an exception that prints the backtrace in the constructor. If I were expecting this to work with an exception thrown in a library, it might require rebuilding/linking so that the backtracing exception is used.
/******************************************
#Makefile with flags for printing backtrace with function names
# compile with symbols for backtrace
CXXFLAGS=-g
# add symbols to dynamic symbol table for backtrace
LDFLAGS=-rdynamic
turducken: turducken.cc
******************************************/
#include <cstdio>
#include <stdexcept>
#include <execinfo.h>
#include "stacktrace.h" /* https://panthema.net/2008/0901-stacktrace-demangled/ */
// simple exception that prints backtrace when constructed
class btoverflow_error: public std::overflow_error
{
public:
btoverflow_error( const std::string& arg ) :
std::overflow_error( arg )
{
print_stacktrace();
};
};
void chicken(void)
{
throw btoverflow_error( "too big" );
}
void duck(void)
{
chicken();
}
void turkey(void)
{
duck();
}
int main( int argc, char *argv[])
{
try
{
turkey();
}
catch( btoverflow_error e)
{
printf( "caught exception: %s\n", e.what() );
}
}
Compiling and running this with gcc 4.8.4 yields a backtrace with nicely unmangled C++ function names:
stack trace:
./turducken : btoverflow_error::btoverflow_error(std::string const&)+0x43
./turducken : chicken()+0x48
./turducken : duck()+0x9
./turducken : turkey()+0x9
./turducken : main()+0x15
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 : __libc_start_main()+0xf5
./turducken() [0x401629]

Poppy can gather not only the stack trace, but also parameter values, local variables, etc. - everything leading to the crash.

The following code stops the execution right after an exception is thrown. You need to set a windows_exception_handler along with a termination handler. I tested this in MinGW 32bits.
void beforeCrash(void);
static const bool SET_TERMINATE = std::set_terminate(beforeCrash);
void beforeCrash() {
__asm("int3");
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
SetUnhandledExceptionFilter(windows_exception_handler);
...
}
Check the following code for the windows_exception_handler function:
http://www.codedisqus.com/0ziVPgVPUk/exception-handling-and-stacktrace-under-windows-mingwgcc.html

Cpp-tool ex_diag - easyweight, multiplatform, minimal resource using, simple and flexible at trace.

A working example for OSX (tested right now on Catalina 10.15). Not portable to linux/windows obviously. Probably it will be usefull to somebody.
In the "Mew-exception" string you can use backtrace and/or backtrace_symbols functions
#include <stdexcept>
#include <typeinfo>
#include <dlfcn.h>
extern "C" void __cxa_throw(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *));
static void (*__cxa_throw_orig)(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *));
extern "C" void luna_cxa_throw(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *))
{
printf("Mew-exception you can catch your backtrace here!");
__cxa_throw_orig(thrown_object, tinfo, dest);
}
//__attribute__ ((used))
//__attribute__ ((section ("__DATA,__interpose")))
static struct replace_pair_t {
void *replacement, *replacee;
} replace_pair = { (void*)luna_cxa_throw, (void*)__cxa_throw };
extern "C" const struct mach_header __dso_handle;
extern "C" void dyld_dynamic_interpose(const struct mach_header*,
const replace_pair_t replacements[],
size_t count);
int fn()
{
int a = 10; ++a;
throw std::runtime_error("Mew!");
}
int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
__cxa_throw_orig = (void (*)(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *)))dlsym(RTLD_DEFAULT, "__cxa_throw");
dyld_dynamic_interpose(&__dso_handle, &replace_pair, 1);
fn();
return 0;
}

Related

Get line number of exception C [duplicate]

I want to have a way to report the stack trace to the user if an exception is thrown. What is the best way to do this? Does it take huge amounts of extra code?
To answer questions:
I'd like it to be portable if possible. I want information to pop up, so the user can copy the stack trace and email it to me if an error comes up.
Andrew Grant's answer does not help getting a stack trace of the throwing function, at least not with GCC, because a throw statement does not save the current stack trace on its own, and the catch handler won't have access to the stack trace at that point any more.
The only way - using GCC - to solve this is to make sure to generate a stack trace at the point of the throw instruction, and save that with the exception object.
This method requires, of course, that every code that throws an exception uses that particular Exception class.
Update 11 July 2017: For some helpful code, take a look at cahit beyaz's answer, which points to http://stacktrace.sourceforge.net - I haven't used it yet but it looks promising.
It depends which platform.
On GCC it's pretty trivial, see this post for more details.
On MSVC then you can use the StackWalker library that handles all of the underlying API calls needed for Windows.
You'll have to figure out the best way to integrate this functionality into your app, but the amount of code you need to write should be minimal.
If you are using Boost 1.65 or higher, you can use boost::stacktrace:
#include <boost/stacktrace.hpp>
// ... somewhere inside the bar(int) function that is called recursively:
std::cout << boost::stacktrace::stacktrace();
I would like to add a standard library option (i.e. cross-platform) how to generate exception backtraces, which has become available with C++11:
Use std::nested_exception and std::throw_with_nested
This won't give you a stack unwind, but in my opinion the next best thing.
It is described on StackOverflow here and here, how you can get a backtrace on your exceptions inside your code without need for a debugger or cumbersome logging, by simply writing a proper exception handler which will rethrow nested exceptions.
Since you can do this with any derived exception class, you can add a lot of information to such a backtrace!
You may also take a look at my MWE on GitHub, where a backtrace would look something like this:
Library API: Exception caught in function 'api_function'
Backtrace:
~/Git/mwe-cpp-exception/src/detail/Library.cpp:17 : library_function failed
~/Git/mwe-cpp-exception/src/detail/Library.cpp:13 : could not open file "nonexistent.txt"
Unix: backtrace
Mac: backtrace
Windows: CaptureBackTrace
If you are using C++ and don't want/can't use Boost, you can print backtrace with demangled names using the following code [link to the original site].
Note, this solution is specific to Linux. It uses GNU's libc functions backtrace()/backtrace_symbols() (from execinfo.h) to get the backtraces and then uses __cxa_demangle() (from cxxabi.h) for demangling the backtrace symbol names.
// stacktrace.h (c) 2008, Timo Bingmann from http://idlebox.net/
// published under the WTFPL v2.0
#ifndef _STACKTRACE_H_
#define _STACKTRACE_H_
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <execinfo.h>
#include <cxxabi.h>
/** Print a demangled stack backtrace of the caller function to FILE* out. */
static inline void print_stacktrace(FILE *out = stderr, unsigned int max_frames = 63)
{
fprintf(out, "stack trace:\n");
// storage array for stack trace address data
void* addrlist[max_frames+1];
// retrieve current stack addresses
int addrlen = backtrace(addrlist, sizeof(addrlist) / sizeof(void*));
if (addrlen == 0) {
fprintf(out, " <empty, possibly corrupt>\n");
return;
}
// resolve addresses into strings containing "filename(function+address)",
// this array must be free()-ed
char** symbollist = backtrace_symbols(addrlist, addrlen);
// allocate string which will be filled with the demangled function name
size_t funcnamesize = 256;
char* funcname = (char*)malloc(funcnamesize);
// iterate over the returned symbol lines. skip the first, it is the
// address of this function.
for (int i = 1; i < addrlen; i++)
{
char *begin_name = 0, *begin_offset = 0, *end_offset = 0;
// find parentheses and +address offset surrounding the mangled name:
// ./module(function+0x15c) [0x8048a6d]
for (char *p = symbollist[i]; *p; ++p)
{
if (*p == '(')
begin_name = p;
else if (*p == '+')
begin_offset = p;
else if (*p == ')' && begin_offset) {
end_offset = p;
break;
}
}
if (begin_name && begin_offset && end_offset
&& begin_name < begin_offset)
{
*begin_name++ = '\0';
*begin_offset++ = '\0';
*end_offset = '\0';
// mangled name is now in [begin_name, begin_offset) and caller
// offset in [begin_offset, end_offset). now apply
// __cxa_demangle():
int status;
char* ret = abi::__cxa_demangle(begin_name,
funcname, &funcnamesize, &status);
if (status == 0) {
funcname = ret; // use possibly realloc()-ed string
fprintf(out, " %s : %s+%s\n",
symbollist[i], funcname, begin_offset);
}
else {
// demangling failed. Output function name as a C function with
// no arguments.
fprintf(out, " %s : %s()+%s\n",
symbollist[i], begin_name, begin_offset);
}
}
else
{
// couldn't parse the line? print the whole line.
fprintf(out, " %s\n", symbollist[i]);
}
}
free(funcname);
free(symbollist);
}
#endif // _STACKTRACE_H_
HTH!
AFAIK libunwind is quite portable and so far I haven't found anything easier to use.
I recommend http://stacktrace.sourceforge.net/ project. It support Windows, Mac OS and also Linux
Since the stack is already unwound when entering the catch block, the solution in my case was to not catch certain exceptions which then lead to a SIGABRT. In the signal handler for SIGABRT I then fork() and execl() either gdb (in debug builds) or Google breakpads stackwalk (in release builds). Also I try to only use signal handler safe functions.
GDB:
static const char BACKTRACE_START[] = "<2>--- backtrace of entire stack ---\n";
static const char BACKTRACE_STOP[] = "<2>--- backtrace finished ---\n";
static char *ltrim(char *s)
{
while (' ' == *s) {
s++;
}
return s;
}
void Backtracer::print()
{
int child_pid = ::fork();
if (child_pid == 0) {
// redirect stdout to stderr
::dup2(2, 1);
// create buffer for parent pid (2+16+1 spaces to allow up to a 64 bit hex parent pid)
char pid_buf[32];
const char* stem = " ";
const char* s = stem;
char* d = &pid_buf[0];
while (static_cast<bool>(*s))
{
*d++ = *s++;
}
*d-- = '\0';
char* hexppid = d;
// write parent pid to buffer and prefix with 0x
int ppid = getppid();
while (ppid != 0) {
*hexppid = ((ppid & 0xF) + '0');
if(*hexppid > '9') {
*hexppid += 'a' - '0' - 10;
}
--hexppid;
ppid >>= 4;
}
*hexppid-- = 'x';
*hexppid = '0';
// invoke GDB
char name_buf[512];
name_buf[::readlink("/proc/self/exe", &name_buf[0], 511)] = 0;
ssize_t r = ::write(STDERR_FILENO, &BACKTRACE_START[0], sizeof(BACKTRACE_START));
(void)r;
::execl("/usr/bin/gdb",
"/usr/bin/gdb", "--batch", "-n", "-ex", "thread apply all bt full", "-ex", "quit",
&name_buf[0], ltrim(&pid_buf[0]), nullptr);
::exit(1); // if GDB failed to start
} else if (child_pid == -1) {
::exit(1); // if forking failed
} else {
// make it work for non root users
if (0 != getuid()) {
::prctl(PR_SET_PTRACER, PR_SET_PTRACER_ANY, 0, 0, 0);
}
::waitpid(child_pid, nullptr, 0);
ssize_t r = ::write(STDERR_FILENO, &BACKTRACE_STOP[0], sizeof(BACKTRACE_STOP));
(void)r;
}
}
minidump_stackwalk:
static bool dumpCallback(const google_breakpad::MinidumpDescriptor& descriptor, void* context, bool succeeded)
{
int child_pid = ::fork();
if (child_pid == 0) {
::dup2(open("/dev/null", O_WRONLY), 2); // ignore verbose output on stderr
ssize_t r = ::write(STDOUT_FILENO, &MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_START[0], sizeof(MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_START));
(void)r;
::execl("/usr/bin/minidump_stackwalk", "/usr/bin/minidump_stackwalk", descriptor.path(), "/usr/share/breakpad-syms", nullptr);
::exit(1); // if minidump_stackwalk failed to start
} else if (child_pid == -1) {
::exit(1); // if forking failed
} else {
::waitpid(child_pid, nullptr, 0);
ssize_t r = ::write(STDOUT_FILENO, &MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_STOP[0], sizeof(MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_STOP));
(void)r;
}
::remove(descriptor.path()); // this is not signal safe anymore but should still work
return succeeded;
}
Edit: To make it work for breakpad I also had to add this:
std::set_terminate([]()
{
ssize_t r = ::write(STDERR_FILENO, EXCEPTION, sizeof(EXCEPTION));
(void)r;
google_breakpad::ExceptionHandler::WriteMinidump(std::string("/tmp"), dumpCallback, NULL);
exit(1); // avoid creating a second dump by not calling std::abort
});
Source: How to get a stack trace for C++ using gcc with line number information? and Is it possible to attach gdb to a crashed process (a.k.a "just-in-time" debugging)
on linux with g++ check out this lib
https://sourceforge.net/projects/libcsdbg
it does all the work for you
On Windows, check out BugTrap. Its not longer at the original link, but its still available on CodeProject.
I have a similar problem, and though I like portability, I only need gcc support. In gcc, execinfo.h and the backtrace calls are available. To demangle the function names, Mr. Bingmann has a nice piece of code. To dump a backtrace on an exception, I create an exception that prints the backtrace in the constructor. If I were expecting this to work with an exception thrown in a library, it might require rebuilding/linking so that the backtracing exception is used.
/******************************************
#Makefile with flags for printing backtrace with function names
# compile with symbols for backtrace
CXXFLAGS=-g
# add symbols to dynamic symbol table for backtrace
LDFLAGS=-rdynamic
turducken: turducken.cc
******************************************/
#include <cstdio>
#include <stdexcept>
#include <execinfo.h>
#include "stacktrace.h" /* https://panthema.net/2008/0901-stacktrace-demangled/ */
// simple exception that prints backtrace when constructed
class btoverflow_error: public std::overflow_error
{
public:
btoverflow_error( const std::string& arg ) :
std::overflow_error( arg )
{
print_stacktrace();
};
};
void chicken(void)
{
throw btoverflow_error( "too big" );
}
void duck(void)
{
chicken();
}
void turkey(void)
{
duck();
}
int main( int argc, char *argv[])
{
try
{
turkey();
}
catch( btoverflow_error e)
{
printf( "caught exception: %s\n", e.what() );
}
}
Compiling and running this with gcc 4.8.4 yields a backtrace with nicely unmangled C++ function names:
stack trace:
./turducken : btoverflow_error::btoverflow_error(std::string const&)+0x43
./turducken : chicken()+0x48
./turducken : duck()+0x9
./turducken : turkey()+0x9
./turducken : main()+0x15
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 : __libc_start_main()+0xf5
./turducken() [0x401629]
Poppy can gather not only the stack trace, but also parameter values, local variables, etc. - everything leading to the crash.
The following code stops the execution right after an exception is thrown. You need to set a windows_exception_handler along with a termination handler. I tested this in MinGW 32bits.
void beforeCrash(void);
static const bool SET_TERMINATE = std::set_terminate(beforeCrash);
void beforeCrash() {
__asm("int3");
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
SetUnhandledExceptionFilter(windows_exception_handler);
...
}
Check the following code for the windows_exception_handler function:
http://www.codedisqus.com/0ziVPgVPUk/exception-handling-and-stacktrace-under-windows-mingwgcc.html
Cpp-tool ex_diag - easyweight, multiplatform, minimal resource using, simple and flexible at trace.
A working example for OSX (tested right now on Catalina 10.15). Not portable to linux/windows obviously. Probably it will be usefull to somebody.
In the "Mew-exception" string you can use backtrace and/or backtrace_symbols functions
#include <stdexcept>
#include <typeinfo>
#include <dlfcn.h>
extern "C" void __cxa_throw(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *));
static void (*__cxa_throw_orig)(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *));
extern "C" void luna_cxa_throw(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *))
{
printf("Mew-exception you can catch your backtrace here!");
__cxa_throw_orig(thrown_object, tinfo, dest);
}
//__attribute__ ((used))
//__attribute__ ((section ("__DATA,__interpose")))
static struct replace_pair_t {
void *replacement, *replacee;
} replace_pair = { (void*)luna_cxa_throw, (void*)__cxa_throw };
extern "C" const struct mach_header __dso_handle;
extern "C" void dyld_dynamic_interpose(const struct mach_header*,
const replace_pair_t replacements[],
size_t count);
int fn()
{
int a = 10; ++a;
throw std::runtime_error("Mew!");
}
int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
__cxa_throw_orig = (void (*)(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *)))dlsym(RTLD_DEFAULT, "__cxa_throw");
dyld_dynamic_interpose(&__dso_handle, &replace_pair, 1);
fn();
return 0;
}

Linux - segmentation fault only sometimes - how to debug

I have a Linux program, that from time to time ends with a segmentation fault. The program is running periodically every hour, but the segmentation fault occurs only sometimes.
I have a problem to debug this, because if I run the program again with the same input, no error is reported and all is OK.
Is there a way, how to "report" in which part of the code error occured or what caused the problem?
The usual way is to have the crashing program generate a corefile and analyze this after the crash. Make sure, that:
the maximum corefile-size is big enough (i.e. unlimited) by calling ulimit -c unlimited in the shell, which starts the process.
The cwd is writable by the segfaulting process.
Then you can analyze the file with
gdb <exe> <corefile>
Since your code not crashing every time, you can use backtrace as well. Using this you can see the function call stack at the time of crash. There are many examples available. In my projects I normally use the following code for backtracing.
/*
* call reg_usr2 function from main
* gcc -rdynamic myfile.c -o output
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdarg.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <execinfo.h>
#define FILE_NAME "/tmp/debug"
#define MODE 0xFFFF
void dbgprint(int flag, char* fmt, ...)
{
if(flag & MODE) {
char buf[100];
va_list vlist;
FILE *fp = fopen(FILE_NAME,"a");
va_start(vlist, fmt);
vsnprintf( buf, sizeof( buf), fmt, vlist);
va_end( vlist);
fprintf(fp,"[%x]->%s\n", flag, buf);
fclose(fp);
}
}
/** Here is the code to print backtrace **/
void print_stack_trace ()
{
void *array[20];
size_t size;
char **strings;
size_t i;
size = backtrace (array, 20);
strings = backtrace_symbols (array, size);
dbgprint(0xFFFF, "Obtained %zd stack frames.", size);
dbgprint(0xFFFF, "-------------------------");
dbgprint(0xFFFF, "---------Backtrace-------");
for (i = 0; i < size; i++)
dbgprint (0xFFFF, "%s", strings[i]);
dbgprint(0xFFFF, "-------------------------");
free (strings);
}
void sig_handler(int signo)
{
FILE *fp = fopen(FILE_NAME,"a");
if (signo == SIGUSR2){
dbgprint(0xFFFF, "received SIGUSR2");
dbgprint(0xFFFF, "----------------");
}
print_stack_trace();
exit(0);
}
void reg_usr2()
{
if (signal(SIGUSR2, sig_handler) == SIG_ERR)
printf("\ncan't catch SIGUSR2\n");
}
int main()
{
reg_usr2(); //should be first line of main after variables
//Code.....
return 0;
}
You can generate backtrace by catching SIGSEGV signal, and see where your application throw an invalid access.
see https://stackoverflow.com/a/77336/4490542
But there is more easier solution, try running your application with catchsegv
catchsegv './program args'
and better alternative, valgrind
valgrind --tool=none ./program args

C++ retreive function or scope [duplicate]

I want to have a way to report the stack trace to the user if an exception is thrown. What is the best way to do this? Does it take huge amounts of extra code?
To answer questions:
I'd like it to be portable if possible. I want information to pop up, so the user can copy the stack trace and email it to me if an error comes up.
Andrew Grant's answer does not help getting a stack trace of the throwing function, at least not with GCC, because a throw statement does not save the current stack trace on its own, and the catch handler won't have access to the stack trace at that point any more.
The only way - using GCC - to solve this is to make sure to generate a stack trace at the point of the throw instruction, and save that with the exception object.
This method requires, of course, that every code that throws an exception uses that particular Exception class.
Update 11 July 2017: For some helpful code, take a look at cahit beyaz's answer, which points to http://stacktrace.sourceforge.net - I haven't used it yet but it looks promising.
It depends which platform.
On GCC it's pretty trivial, see this post for more details.
On MSVC then you can use the StackWalker library that handles all of the underlying API calls needed for Windows.
You'll have to figure out the best way to integrate this functionality into your app, but the amount of code you need to write should be minimal.
If you are using Boost 1.65 or higher, you can use boost::stacktrace:
#include <boost/stacktrace.hpp>
// ... somewhere inside the bar(int) function that is called recursively:
std::cout << boost::stacktrace::stacktrace();
I would like to add a standard library option (i.e. cross-platform) how to generate exception backtraces, which has become available with C++11:
Use std::nested_exception and std::throw_with_nested
This won't give you a stack unwind, but in my opinion the next best thing.
It is described on StackOverflow here and here, how you can get a backtrace on your exceptions inside your code without need for a debugger or cumbersome logging, by simply writing a proper exception handler which will rethrow nested exceptions.
Since you can do this with any derived exception class, you can add a lot of information to such a backtrace!
You may also take a look at my MWE on GitHub, where a backtrace would look something like this:
Library API: Exception caught in function 'api_function'
Backtrace:
~/Git/mwe-cpp-exception/src/detail/Library.cpp:17 : library_function failed
~/Git/mwe-cpp-exception/src/detail/Library.cpp:13 : could not open file "nonexistent.txt"
Unix: backtrace
Mac: backtrace
Windows: CaptureBackTrace
If you are using C++ and don't want/can't use Boost, you can print backtrace with demangled names using the following code [link to the original site].
Note, this solution is specific to Linux. It uses GNU's libc functions backtrace()/backtrace_symbols() (from execinfo.h) to get the backtraces and then uses __cxa_demangle() (from cxxabi.h) for demangling the backtrace symbol names.
// stacktrace.h (c) 2008, Timo Bingmann from http://idlebox.net/
// published under the WTFPL v2.0
#ifndef _STACKTRACE_H_
#define _STACKTRACE_H_
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <execinfo.h>
#include <cxxabi.h>
/** Print a demangled stack backtrace of the caller function to FILE* out. */
static inline void print_stacktrace(FILE *out = stderr, unsigned int max_frames = 63)
{
fprintf(out, "stack trace:\n");
// storage array for stack trace address data
void* addrlist[max_frames+1];
// retrieve current stack addresses
int addrlen = backtrace(addrlist, sizeof(addrlist) / sizeof(void*));
if (addrlen == 0) {
fprintf(out, " <empty, possibly corrupt>\n");
return;
}
// resolve addresses into strings containing "filename(function+address)",
// this array must be free()-ed
char** symbollist = backtrace_symbols(addrlist, addrlen);
// allocate string which will be filled with the demangled function name
size_t funcnamesize = 256;
char* funcname = (char*)malloc(funcnamesize);
// iterate over the returned symbol lines. skip the first, it is the
// address of this function.
for (int i = 1; i < addrlen; i++)
{
char *begin_name = 0, *begin_offset = 0, *end_offset = 0;
// find parentheses and +address offset surrounding the mangled name:
// ./module(function+0x15c) [0x8048a6d]
for (char *p = symbollist[i]; *p; ++p)
{
if (*p == '(')
begin_name = p;
else if (*p == '+')
begin_offset = p;
else if (*p == ')' && begin_offset) {
end_offset = p;
break;
}
}
if (begin_name && begin_offset && end_offset
&& begin_name < begin_offset)
{
*begin_name++ = '\0';
*begin_offset++ = '\0';
*end_offset = '\0';
// mangled name is now in [begin_name, begin_offset) and caller
// offset in [begin_offset, end_offset). now apply
// __cxa_demangle():
int status;
char* ret = abi::__cxa_demangle(begin_name,
funcname, &funcnamesize, &status);
if (status == 0) {
funcname = ret; // use possibly realloc()-ed string
fprintf(out, " %s : %s+%s\n",
symbollist[i], funcname, begin_offset);
}
else {
// demangling failed. Output function name as a C function with
// no arguments.
fprintf(out, " %s : %s()+%s\n",
symbollist[i], begin_name, begin_offset);
}
}
else
{
// couldn't parse the line? print the whole line.
fprintf(out, " %s\n", symbollist[i]);
}
}
free(funcname);
free(symbollist);
}
#endif // _STACKTRACE_H_
HTH!
AFAIK libunwind is quite portable and so far I haven't found anything easier to use.
I recommend http://stacktrace.sourceforge.net/ project. It support Windows, Mac OS and also Linux
Since the stack is already unwound when entering the catch block, the solution in my case was to not catch certain exceptions which then lead to a SIGABRT. In the signal handler for SIGABRT I then fork() and execl() either gdb (in debug builds) or Google breakpads stackwalk (in release builds). Also I try to only use signal handler safe functions.
GDB:
static const char BACKTRACE_START[] = "<2>--- backtrace of entire stack ---\n";
static const char BACKTRACE_STOP[] = "<2>--- backtrace finished ---\n";
static char *ltrim(char *s)
{
while (' ' == *s) {
s++;
}
return s;
}
void Backtracer::print()
{
int child_pid = ::fork();
if (child_pid == 0) {
// redirect stdout to stderr
::dup2(2, 1);
// create buffer for parent pid (2+16+1 spaces to allow up to a 64 bit hex parent pid)
char pid_buf[32];
const char* stem = " ";
const char* s = stem;
char* d = &pid_buf[0];
while (static_cast<bool>(*s))
{
*d++ = *s++;
}
*d-- = '\0';
char* hexppid = d;
// write parent pid to buffer and prefix with 0x
int ppid = getppid();
while (ppid != 0) {
*hexppid = ((ppid & 0xF) + '0');
if(*hexppid > '9') {
*hexppid += 'a' - '0' - 10;
}
--hexppid;
ppid >>= 4;
}
*hexppid-- = 'x';
*hexppid = '0';
// invoke GDB
char name_buf[512];
name_buf[::readlink("/proc/self/exe", &name_buf[0], 511)] = 0;
ssize_t r = ::write(STDERR_FILENO, &BACKTRACE_START[0], sizeof(BACKTRACE_START));
(void)r;
::execl("/usr/bin/gdb",
"/usr/bin/gdb", "--batch", "-n", "-ex", "thread apply all bt full", "-ex", "quit",
&name_buf[0], ltrim(&pid_buf[0]), nullptr);
::exit(1); // if GDB failed to start
} else if (child_pid == -1) {
::exit(1); // if forking failed
} else {
// make it work for non root users
if (0 != getuid()) {
::prctl(PR_SET_PTRACER, PR_SET_PTRACER_ANY, 0, 0, 0);
}
::waitpid(child_pid, nullptr, 0);
ssize_t r = ::write(STDERR_FILENO, &BACKTRACE_STOP[0], sizeof(BACKTRACE_STOP));
(void)r;
}
}
minidump_stackwalk:
static bool dumpCallback(const google_breakpad::MinidumpDescriptor& descriptor, void* context, bool succeeded)
{
int child_pid = ::fork();
if (child_pid == 0) {
::dup2(open("/dev/null", O_WRONLY), 2); // ignore verbose output on stderr
ssize_t r = ::write(STDOUT_FILENO, &MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_START[0], sizeof(MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_START));
(void)r;
::execl("/usr/bin/minidump_stackwalk", "/usr/bin/minidump_stackwalk", descriptor.path(), "/usr/share/breakpad-syms", nullptr);
::exit(1); // if minidump_stackwalk failed to start
} else if (child_pid == -1) {
::exit(1); // if forking failed
} else {
::waitpid(child_pid, nullptr, 0);
ssize_t r = ::write(STDOUT_FILENO, &MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_STOP[0], sizeof(MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_STOP));
(void)r;
}
::remove(descriptor.path()); // this is not signal safe anymore but should still work
return succeeded;
}
Edit: To make it work for breakpad I also had to add this:
std::set_terminate([]()
{
ssize_t r = ::write(STDERR_FILENO, EXCEPTION, sizeof(EXCEPTION));
(void)r;
google_breakpad::ExceptionHandler::WriteMinidump(std::string("/tmp"), dumpCallback, NULL);
exit(1); // avoid creating a second dump by not calling std::abort
});
Source: How to get a stack trace for C++ using gcc with line number information? and Is it possible to attach gdb to a crashed process (a.k.a "just-in-time" debugging)
on linux with g++ check out this lib
https://sourceforge.net/projects/libcsdbg
it does all the work for you
On Windows, check out BugTrap. Its not longer at the original link, but its still available on CodeProject.
I have a similar problem, and though I like portability, I only need gcc support. In gcc, execinfo.h and the backtrace calls are available. To demangle the function names, Mr. Bingmann has a nice piece of code. To dump a backtrace on an exception, I create an exception that prints the backtrace in the constructor. If I were expecting this to work with an exception thrown in a library, it might require rebuilding/linking so that the backtracing exception is used.
/******************************************
#Makefile with flags for printing backtrace with function names
# compile with symbols for backtrace
CXXFLAGS=-g
# add symbols to dynamic symbol table for backtrace
LDFLAGS=-rdynamic
turducken: turducken.cc
******************************************/
#include <cstdio>
#include <stdexcept>
#include <execinfo.h>
#include "stacktrace.h" /* https://panthema.net/2008/0901-stacktrace-demangled/ */
// simple exception that prints backtrace when constructed
class btoverflow_error: public std::overflow_error
{
public:
btoverflow_error( const std::string& arg ) :
std::overflow_error( arg )
{
print_stacktrace();
};
};
void chicken(void)
{
throw btoverflow_error( "too big" );
}
void duck(void)
{
chicken();
}
void turkey(void)
{
duck();
}
int main( int argc, char *argv[])
{
try
{
turkey();
}
catch( btoverflow_error e)
{
printf( "caught exception: %s\n", e.what() );
}
}
Compiling and running this with gcc 4.8.4 yields a backtrace with nicely unmangled C++ function names:
stack trace:
./turducken : btoverflow_error::btoverflow_error(std::string const&)+0x43
./turducken : chicken()+0x48
./turducken : duck()+0x9
./turducken : turkey()+0x9
./turducken : main()+0x15
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 : __libc_start_main()+0xf5
./turducken() [0x401629]
Poppy can gather not only the stack trace, but also parameter values, local variables, etc. - everything leading to the crash.
The following code stops the execution right after an exception is thrown. You need to set a windows_exception_handler along with a termination handler. I tested this in MinGW 32bits.
void beforeCrash(void);
static const bool SET_TERMINATE = std::set_terminate(beforeCrash);
void beforeCrash() {
__asm("int3");
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
SetUnhandledExceptionFilter(windows_exception_handler);
...
}
Check the following code for the windows_exception_handler function:
http://www.codedisqus.com/0ziVPgVPUk/exception-handling-and-stacktrace-under-windows-mingwgcc.html
Cpp-tool ex_diag - easyweight, multiplatform, minimal resource using, simple and flexible at trace.
A working example for OSX (tested right now on Catalina 10.15). Not portable to linux/windows obviously. Probably it will be usefull to somebody.
In the "Mew-exception" string you can use backtrace and/or backtrace_symbols functions
#include <stdexcept>
#include <typeinfo>
#include <dlfcn.h>
extern "C" void __cxa_throw(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *));
static void (*__cxa_throw_orig)(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *));
extern "C" void luna_cxa_throw(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *))
{
printf("Mew-exception you can catch your backtrace here!");
__cxa_throw_orig(thrown_object, tinfo, dest);
}
//__attribute__ ((used))
//__attribute__ ((section ("__DATA,__interpose")))
static struct replace_pair_t {
void *replacement, *replacee;
} replace_pair = { (void*)luna_cxa_throw, (void*)__cxa_throw };
extern "C" const struct mach_header __dso_handle;
extern "C" void dyld_dynamic_interpose(const struct mach_header*,
const replace_pair_t replacements[],
size_t count);
int fn()
{
int a = 10; ++a;
throw std::runtime_error("Mew!");
}
int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
__cxa_throw_orig = (void (*)(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *)))dlsym(RTLD_DEFAULT, "__cxa_throw");
dyld_dynamic_interpose(&__dso_handle, &replace_pair, 1);
fn();
return 0;
}

How to implement an exception handler with stack trace in C++ [duplicate]

I want to have a way to report the stack trace to the user if an exception is thrown. What is the best way to do this? Does it take huge amounts of extra code?
To answer questions:
I'd like it to be portable if possible. I want information to pop up, so the user can copy the stack trace and email it to me if an error comes up.
Andrew Grant's answer does not help getting a stack trace of the throwing function, at least not with GCC, because a throw statement does not save the current stack trace on its own, and the catch handler won't have access to the stack trace at that point any more.
The only way - using GCC - to solve this is to make sure to generate a stack trace at the point of the throw instruction, and save that with the exception object.
This method requires, of course, that every code that throws an exception uses that particular Exception class.
Update 11 July 2017: For some helpful code, take a look at cahit beyaz's answer, which points to http://stacktrace.sourceforge.net - I haven't used it yet but it looks promising.
It depends which platform.
On GCC it's pretty trivial, see this post for more details.
On MSVC then you can use the StackWalker library that handles all of the underlying API calls needed for Windows.
You'll have to figure out the best way to integrate this functionality into your app, but the amount of code you need to write should be minimal.
If you are using Boost 1.65 or higher, you can use boost::stacktrace:
#include <boost/stacktrace.hpp>
// ... somewhere inside the bar(int) function that is called recursively:
std::cout << boost::stacktrace::stacktrace();
I would like to add a standard library option (i.e. cross-platform) how to generate exception backtraces, which has become available with C++11:
Use std::nested_exception and std::throw_with_nested
This won't give you a stack unwind, but in my opinion the next best thing.
It is described on StackOverflow here and here, how you can get a backtrace on your exceptions inside your code without need for a debugger or cumbersome logging, by simply writing a proper exception handler which will rethrow nested exceptions.
Since you can do this with any derived exception class, you can add a lot of information to such a backtrace!
You may also take a look at my MWE on GitHub, where a backtrace would look something like this:
Library API: Exception caught in function 'api_function'
Backtrace:
~/Git/mwe-cpp-exception/src/detail/Library.cpp:17 : library_function failed
~/Git/mwe-cpp-exception/src/detail/Library.cpp:13 : could not open file "nonexistent.txt"
Unix: backtrace
Mac: backtrace
Windows: CaptureBackTrace
If you are using C++ and don't want/can't use Boost, you can print backtrace with demangled names using the following code [link to the original site].
Note, this solution is specific to Linux. It uses GNU's libc functions backtrace()/backtrace_symbols() (from execinfo.h) to get the backtraces and then uses __cxa_demangle() (from cxxabi.h) for demangling the backtrace symbol names.
// stacktrace.h (c) 2008, Timo Bingmann from http://idlebox.net/
// published under the WTFPL v2.0
#ifndef _STACKTRACE_H_
#define _STACKTRACE_H_
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <execinfo.h>
#include <cxxabi.h>
/** Print a demangled stack backtrace of the caller function to FILE* out. */
static inline void print_stacktrace(FILE *out = stderr, unsigned int max_frames = 63)
{
fprintf(out, "stack trace:\n");
// storage array for stack trace address data
void* addrlist[max_frames+1];
// retrieve current stack addresses
int addrlen = backtrace(addrlist, sizeof(addrlist) / sizeof(void*));
if (addrlen == 0) {
fprintf(out, " <empty, possibly corrupt>\n");
return;
}
// resolve addresses into strings containing "filename(function+address)",
// this array must be free()-ed
char** symbollist = backtrace_symbols(addrlist, addrlen);
// allocate string which will be filled with the demangled function name
size_t funcnamesize = 256;
char* funcname = (char*)malloc(funcnamesize);
// iterate over the returned symbol lines. skip the first, it is the
// address of this function.
for (int i = 1; i < addrlen; i++)
{
char *begin_name = 0, *begin_offset = 0, *end_offset = 0;
// find parentheses and +address offset surrounding the mangled name:
// ./module(function+0x15c) [0x8048a6d]
for (char *p = symbollist[i]; *p; ++p)
{
if (*p == '(')
begin_name = p;
else if (*p == '+')
begin_offset = p;
else if (*p == ')' && begin_offset) {
end_offset = p;
break;
}
}
if (begin_name && begin_offset && end_offset
&& begin_name < begin_offset)
{
*begin_name++ = '\0';
*begin_offset++ = '\0';
*end_offset = '\0';
// mangled name is now in [begin_name, begin_offset) and caller
// offset in [begin_offset, end_offset). now apply
// __cxa_demangle():
int status;
char* ret = abi::__cxa_demangle(begin_name,
funcname, &funcnamesize, &status);
if (status == 0) {
funcname = ret; // use possibly realloc()-ed string
fprintf(out, " %s : %s+%s\n",
symbollist[i], funcname, begin_offset);
}
else {
// demangling failed. Output function name as a C function with
// no arguments.
fprintf(out, " %s : %s()+%s\n",
symbollist[i], begin_name, begin_offset);
}
}
else
{
// couldn't parse the line? print the whole line.
fprintf(out, " %s\n", symbollist[i]);
}
}
free(funcname);
free(symbollist);
}
#endif // _STACKTRACE_H_
HTH!
AFAIK libunwind is quite portable and so far I haven't found anything easier to use.
I recommend http://stacktrace.sourceforge.net/ project. It support Windows, Mac OS and also Linux
Since the stack is already unwound when entering the catch block, the solution in my case was to not catch certain exceptions which then lead to a SIGABRT. In the signal handler for SIGABRT I then fork() and execl() either gdb (in debug builds) or Google breakpads stackwalk (in release builds). Also I try to only use signal handler safe functions.
GDB:
static const char BACKTRACE_START[] = "<2>--- backtrace of entire stack ---\n";
static const char BACKTRACE_STOP[] = "<2>--- backtrace finished ---\n";
static char *ltrim(char *s)
{
while (' ' == *s) {
s++;
}
return s;
}
void Backtracer::print()
{
int child_pid = ::fork();
if (child_pid == 0) {
// redirect stdout to stderr
::dup2(2, 1);
// create buffer for parent pid (2+16+1 spaces to allow up to a 64 bit hex parent pid)
char pid_buf[32];
const char* stem = " ";
const char* s = stem;
char* d = &pid_buf[0];
while (static_cast<bool>(*s))
{
*d++ = *s++;
}
*d-- = '\0';
char* hexppid = d;
// write parent pid to buffer and prefix with 0x
int ppid = getppid();
while (ppid != 0) {
*hexppid = ((ppid & 0xF) + '0');
if(*hexppid > '9') {
*hexppid += 'a' - '0' - 10;
}
--hexppid;
ppid >>= 4;
}
*hexppid-- = 'x';
*hexppid = '0';
// invoke GDB
char name_buf[512];
name_buf[::readlink("/proc/self/exe", &name_buf[0], 511)] = 0;
ssize_t r = ::write(STDERR_FILENO, &BACKTRACE_START[0], sizeof(BACKTRACE_START));
(void)r;
::execl("/usr/bin/gdb",
"/usr/bin/gdb", "--batch", "-n", "-ex", "thread apply all bt full", "-ex", "quit",
&name_buf[0], ltrim(&pid_buf[0]), nullptr);
::exit(1); // if GDB failed to start
} else if (child_pid == -1) {
::exit(1); // if forking failed
} else {
// make it work for non root users
if (0 != getuid()) {
::prctl(PR_SET_PTRACER, PR_SET_PTRACER_ANY, 0, 0, 0);
}
::waitpid(child_pid, nullptr, 0);
ssize_t r = ::write(STDERR_FILENO, &BACKTRACE_STOP[0], sizeof(BACKTRACE_STOP));
(void)r;
}
}
minidump_stackwalk:
static bool dumpCallback(const google_breakpad::MinidumpDescriptor& descriptor, void* context, bool succeeded)
{
int child_pid = ::fork();
if (child_pid == 0) {
::dup2(open("/dev/null", O_WRONLY), 2); // ignore verbose output on stderr
ssize_t r = ::write(STDOUT_FILENO, &MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_START[0], sizeof(MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_START));
(void)r;
::execl("/usr/bin/minidump_stackwalk", "/usr/bin/minidump_stackwalk", descriptor.path(), "/usr/share/breakpad-syms", nullptr);
::exit(1); // if minidump_stackwalk failed to start
} else if (child_pid == -1) {
::exit(1); // if forking failed
} else {
::waitpid(child_pid, nullptr, 0);
ssize_t r = ::write(STDOUT_FILENO, &MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_STOP[0], sizeof(MINIDUMP_STACKWALK_STOP));
(void)r;
}
::remove(descriptor.path()); // this is not signal safe anymore but should still work
return succeeded;
}
Edit: To make it work for breakpad I also had to add this:
std::set_terminate([]()
{
ssize_t r = ::write(STDERR_FILENO, EXCEPTION, sizeof(EXCEPTION));
(void)r;
google_breakpad::ExceptionHandler::WriteMinidump(std::string("/tmp"), dumpCallback, NULL);
exit(1); // avoid creating a second dump by not calling std::abort
});
Source: How to get a stack trace for C++ using gcc with line number information? and Is it possible to attach gdb to a crashed process (a.k.a "just-in-time" debugging)
on linux with g++ check out this lib
https://sourceforge.net/projects/libcsdbg
it does all the work for you
On Windows, check out BugTrap. Its not longer at the original link, but its still available on CodeProject.
I have a similar problem, and though I like portability, I only need gcc support. In gcc, execinfo.h and the backtrace calls are available. To demangle the function names, Mr. Bingmann has a nice piece of code. To dump a backtrace on an exception, I create an exception that prints the backtrace in the constructor. If I were expecting this to work with an exception thrown in a library, it might require rebuilding/linking so that the backtracing exception is used.
/******************************************
#Makefile with flags for printing backtrace with function names
# compile with symbols for backtrace
CXXFLAGS=-g
# add symbols to dynamic symbol table for backtrace
LDFLAGS=-rdynamic
turducken: turducken.cc
******************************************/
#include <cstdio>
#include <stdexcept>
#include <execinfo.h>
#include "stacktrace.h" /* https://panthema.net/2008/0901-stacktrace-demangled/ */
// simple exception that prints backtrace when constructed
class btoverflow_error: public std::overflow_error
{
public:
btoverflow_error( const std::string& arg ) :
std::overflow_error( arg )
{
print_stacktrace();
};
};
void chicken(void)
{
throw btoverflow_error( "too big" );
}
void duck(void)
{
chicken();
}
void turkey(void)
{
duck();
}
int main( int argc, char *argv[])
{
try
{
turkey();
}
catch( btoverflow_error e)
{
printf( "caught exception: %s\n", e.what() );
}
}
Compiling and running this with gcc 4.8.4 yields a backtrace with nicely unmangled C++ function names:
stack trace:
./turducken : btoverflow_error::btoverflow_error(std::string const&)+0x43
./turducken : chicken()+0x48
./turducken : duck()+0x9
./turducken : turkey()+0x9
./turducken : main()+0x15
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 : __libc_start_main()+0xf5
./turducken() [0x401629]
Poppy can gather not only the stack trace, but also parameter values, local variables, etc. - everything leading to the crash.
The following code stops the execution right after an exception is thrown. You need to set a windows_exception_handler along with a termination handler. I tested this in MinGW 32bits.
void beforeCrash(void);
static const bool SET_TERMINATE = std::set_terminate(beforeCrash);
void beforeCrash() {
__asm("int3");
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
SetUnhandledExceptionFilter(windows_exception_handler);
...
}
Check the following code for the windows_exception_handler function:
http://www.codedisqus.com/0ziVPgVPUk/exception-handling-and-stacktrace-under-windows-mingwgcc.html
Cpp-tool ex_diag - easyweight, multiplatform, minimal resource using, simple and flexible at trace.
A working example for OSX (tested right now on Catalina 10.15). Not portable to linux/windows obviously. Probably it will be usefull to somebody.
In the "Mew-exception" string you can use backtrace and/or backtrace_symbols functions
#include <stdexcept>
#include <typeinfo>
#include <dlfcn.h>
extern "C" void __cxa_throw(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *));
static void (*__cxa_throw_orig)(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *));
extern "C" void luna_cxa_throw(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *))
{
printf("Mew-exception you can catch your backtrace here!");
__cxa_throw_orig(thrown_object, tinfo, dest);
}
//__attribute__ ((used))
//__attribute__ ((section ("__DATA,__interpose")))
static struct replace_pair_t {
void *replacement, *replacee;
} replace_pair = { (void*)luna_cxa_throw, (void*)__cxa_throw };
extern "C" const struct mach_header __dso_handle;
extern "C" void dyld_dynamic_interpose(const struct mach_header*,
const replace_pair_t replacements[],
size_t count);
int fn()
{
int a = 10; ++a;
throw std::runtime_error("Mew!");
}
int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) {
__cxa_throw_orig = (void (*)(void *thrown_object, std::type_info *tinfo, void (*dest)(void *)))dlsym(RTLD_DEFAULT, "__cxa_throw");
dyld_dynamic_interpose(&__dso_handle, &replace_pair, 1);
fn();
return 0;
}

How to get a stack trace for C++ using gcc with line number information?

We use stack traces in proprietary assert like macro to catch developer mistakes - when error is caught, stack trace is printed.
I find gcc's pair backtrace()/backtrace_symbols() methods insufficient:
Names are mangled
No line information
1st problem can be resolved by abi::__cxa_demangle.
However 2nd problem s more tough. I found replacement for backtrace_symbols().
This is better than gcc's backtrace_symbols(), since it can retrieve line numbers (if compiled with -g) and you don't need to compile with -rdynamic.
Hoverer the code is GNU licenced, so IMHO I can't use it in commercial code.
Any proposal?
P.S.
gdb is capable to print out arguments passed to functions.
Probably it's already too much to ask for :)
PS 2
Similar question (thanks nobar)
So you want a stand-alone function that prints a stack trace with all of the features that gdb stack traces have and that doesn't terminate your application. The answer is to automate the launch of gdb in a non-interactive mode to perform just the tasks that you want.
This is done by executing gdb in a child process, using fork(), and scripting it to display a stack-trace while your application waits for it to complete. This can be performed without the use of a core-dump and without aborting the application. I learned how to do this from looking at this question: How it's better to invoke gdb from program to print it's stacktrace?
The example posted with that question didn't work for me exactly as written, so here's my "fixed" version (I ran this on Ubuntu 9.04).
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/prctl.h>
void print_trace() {
char pid_buf[30];
sprintf(pid_buf, "%d", getpid());
char name_buf[512];
name_buf[readlink("/proc/self/exe", name_buf, 511)]=0;
prctl(PR_SET_PTRACER, PR_SET_PTRACER_ANY, 0, 0, 0);
int child_pid = fork();
if (!child_pid) {
dup2(2,1); // redirect output to stderr - edit: unnecessary?
execl("/usr/bin/gdb", "gdb", "--batch", "-n", "-ex", "thread", "-ex", "bt", name_buf, pid_buf, NULL);
abort(); /* If gdb failed to start */
} else {
waitpid(child_pid,NULL,0);
}
}
As shown in the referenced question, gdb provides additional options that you could use. For example, using "bt full" instead of "bt" produces an even more detailed report (local variables are included in the output). The manpages for gdb are kind of light, but complete documentation is available here.
Since this is based on gdb, the output includes demangled names, line-numbers, function arguments, and optionally even local variables. Also, gdb is thread-aware, so you should be able to extract some thread-specific metadata.
Here's an example of the kind of stack traces that I see with this method.
0x00007f97e1fc2925 in waitpid () from /lib/libc.so.6
[Current thread is 0 (process 15573)]
#0 0x00007f97e1fc2925 in waitpid () from /lib/libc.so.6
#1 0x0000000000400bd5 in print_trace () at ./demo3b.cpp:496
2 0x0000000000400c09 in recursive (i=2) at ./demo3b.cpp:636
3 0x0000000000400c1a in recursive (i=1) at ./demo3b.cpp:646
4 0x0000000000400c1a in recursive (i=0) at ./demo3b.cpp:646
5 0x0000000000400c46 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffe3b2b5b8) at ./demo3b.cpp:70
Note: I found this to be incompatible with the use of valgrind (probably due to Valgrind's use of a virtual machine). It also doesn't work when you are running the program inside of a gdb session (can't apply a second instance of "ptrace" to a process).
Not too long ago I answered a similar question. You should take a look at the source code available on method #4, which also prints line numbers and filenames.
Method #4:
A small improvement I've done on method #3 to print line numbers. This could be copied to work on method #2 also.
Basically, it uses addr2line to convert addresses into file names and line numbers.
The source code below prints line numbers for all local functions. If a function from another library is called, you might see a couple of ??:0 instead of file names.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <execinfo.h>
void bt_sighandler(int sig, struct sigcontext ctx) {
void *trace[16];
char **messages = (char **)NULL;
int i, trace_size = 0;
if (sig == SIGSEGV)
printf("Got signal %d, faulty address is %p, "
"from %p\n", sig, ctx.cr2, ctx.eip);
else
printf("Got signal %d\n", sig);
trace_size = backtrace(trace, 16);
/* overwrite sigaction with caller's address */
trace[1] = (void *)ctx.eip;
messages = backtrace_symbols(trace, trace_size);
/* skip first stack frame (points here) */
printf("[bt] Execution path:\n");
for (i=1; i<trace_size; ++i)
{
printf("[bt] #%d %s\n", i, messages[i]);
/* find first occurence of '(' or ' ' in message[i] and assume
* everything before that is the file name. (Don't go beyond 0 though
* (string terminator)*/
size_t p = 0;
while(messages[i][p] != '(' && messages[i][p] != ' '
&& messages[i][p] != 0)
++p;
char syscom[256];
sprintf(syscom,"addr2line %p -e %.*s", trace[i], p, messages[i]);
//last parameter is the file name of the symbol
system(syscom);
}
exit(0);
}
int func_a(int a, char b) {
char *p = (char *)0xdeadbeef;
a = a + b;
*p = 10; /* CRASH here!! */
return 2*a;
}
int func_b() {
int res, a = 5;
res = 5 + func_a(a, 't');
return res;
}
int main() {
/* Install our signal handler */
struct sigaction sa;
sa.sa_handler = (void *)bt_sighandler;
sigemptyset(&sa.sa_mask);
sa.sa_flags = SA_RESTART;
sigaction(SIGSEGV, &sa, NULL);
sigaction(SIGUSR1, &sa, NULL);
/* ... add any other signal here */
/* Do something */
printf("%d\n", func_b());
}
This code should be compiled as: gcc sighandler.c -o sighandler -rdynamic
The program outputs:
Got signal 11, faulty address is 0xdeadbeef, from 0x8048975
[bt] Execution path:
[bt] #1 ./sighandler(func_a+0x1d) [0x8048975]
/home/karl/workspace/stacktrace/sighandler.c:44
[bt] #2 ./sighandler(func_b+0x20) [0x804899f]
/home/karl/workspace/stacktrace/sighandler.c:54
[bt] #3 ./sighandler(main+0x6c) [0x8048a16]
/home/karl/workspace/stacktrace/sighandler.c:74
[bt] #4 /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe6) [0x3fdbd6]
??:0
[bt] #5 ./sighandler() [0x8048781]
??:0
There is a robust discussion of essentially the same question at: How to generate a stacktrace when my gcc C++ app crashes. Many suggestions are provided, including lots of discussion about how to generate stack traces at run-time.
My personal favorite answer from that thread was to enable core dumps which allows you to view the complete application state at the time of the crash (including function arguments, line numbers, and unmangled names). An additional benefit of this approach is that it not only works for asserts, but also for segmentation faults and unhandled exceptions.
Different Linux shells use different commands to enable core dumps, but you can do it from within your application code with something like this...
#include <sys/resource.h>
...
struct rlimit core_limit = { RLIM_INFINITY, RLIM_INFINITY };
assert( setrlimit( RLIMIT_CORE, &core_limit ) == 0 ); // enable core dumps for debug builds
After a crash, run your favorite debugger to examine the program state.
$ kdbg executable core
Here's some sample output...
It is also possible to extract the stack trace from a core dump at the command line.
$ ( CMDFILE=$(mktemp); echo "bt" >${CMDFILE}; gdb 2>/dev/null --batch -x ${CMDFILE} temp.exe core )
Core was generated by `./temp.exe'.
Program terminated with signal 6, Aborted.
[New process 22857]
#0 0x00007f4189be5fb5 in raise () from /lib/libc.so.6
#0 0x00007f4189be5fb5 in raise () from /lib/libc.so.6
#1 0x00007f4189be7bc3 in abort () from /lib/libc.so.6
#2 0x00007f4189bdef09 in __assert_fail () from /lib/libc.so.6
#3 0x00000000004007e8 in recursive (i=5) at ./demo1.cpp:18
#4 0x00000000004007f3 in recursive (i=4) at ./demo1.cpp:19
#5 0x00000000004007f3 in recursive (i=3) at ./demo1.cpp:19
#6 0x00000000004007f3 in recursive (i=2) at ./demo1.cpp:19
#7 0x00000000004007f3 in recursive (i=1) at ./demo1.cpp:19
#8 0x00000000004007f3 in recursive (i=0) at ./demo1.cpp:19
#9 0x0000000000400849 in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fff2483bd98) at ./demo1.cpp:26
Since the GPL licensed code is intended to help you during development, you could simply not include it in the final product. The GPL restricts you from distributing GPL licenses code linked with non-GPL compatible code. As long as you only use the GPL code inhouse, you should be fine.
Use the google glog library for it. It has new BSD licence.
It contains a GetStackTrace function in the stacktrace.h file.
EDIT
I found here http://blog.bigpixel.ro/2010/09/09/stack-unwinding-stack-trace-with-gcc/ that there is an utility called addr2line that translates program addresses into file names and line numbers.
http://linuxcommand.org/man_pages/addr2line1.html
Here's an alternative approach. A debug_assert() macro programmatically sets a conditional breakpoint. If you are running in a debugger, you will hit a breakpoint when the assert expression is false -- and you can analyze the live stack (the program doesn't terminate). If you are not running in a debugger, a failed debug_assert() causes the program to abort and you get a core dump from which you can analyze the stack (see my earlier answer).
The advantage of this approach, compared to normal asserts, is that you can continue running the program after the debug_assert is triggered (when running in a debugger). In other words, debug_assert() is slightly more flexible than assert().
#include <iostream>
#include <cassert>
#include <sys/resource.h>
// note: The assert expression should show up in
// stack trace as parameter to this function
void debug_breakpoint( char const * expression )
{
asm("int3"); // x86 specific
}
#ifdef NDEBUG
#define debug_assert( expression )
#else
// creates a conditional breakpoint
#define debug_assert( expression ) \
do { if ( !(expression) ) debug_breakpoint( #expression ); } while (0)
#endif
void recursive( int i=0 )
{
debug_assert( i < 5 );
if ( i < 10 ) recursive(i+1);
}
int main( int argc, char * argv[] )
{
rlimit core_limit = { RLIM_INFINITY, RLIM_INFINITY };
setrlimit( RLIMIT_CORE, &core_limit ); // enable core dumps
recursive();
}
Note: Sometimes "conditional breakpoints" setup within debuggers can be slow. By establishing the breakpoint programmatically, the performance of this method should be equivalent to that of a normal assert().
Note: As written, this is specific to the Intel x86 architecture -- other processors may have different instructions for generating a breakpoint.
A bit late, but you can use libbfb to fetch the filename and linenumber like refdbg does in symsnarf.c. libbfb is internally used by addr2line and gdb
here is my solution:
#include <execinfo.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <zconf.h>
#include "regex"
std::string getexepath() {
char result[PATH_MAX];
ssize_t count = readlink("/proc/self/exe", result, PATH_MAX);
return std::string(result, (count > 0) ? count : 0);
}
std::string sh(std::string cmd) {
std::array<char, 128> buffer;
std::string result;
std::shared_ptr<FILE> pipe(popen(cmd.c_str(), "r"), pclose);
if (!pipe) throw std::runtime_error("popen() failed!");
while (!feof(pipe.get())) {
if (fgets(buffer.data(), 128, pipe.get()) != nullptr) {
result += buffer.data();
}
}
return result;
}
void print_backtrace(void) {
void *bt[1024];
int bt_size;
char **bt_syms;
int i;
bt_size = backtrace(bt, 1024);
bt_syms = backtrace_symbols(bt, bt_size);
std::regex re("\\[(.+)\\]");
auto exec_path = getexepath();
for (i = 1; i < bt_size; i++) {
std::string sym = bt_syms[i];
std::smatch ms;
if (std::regex_search(sym, ms, re)) {
std::string addr = ms[1];
std::string cmd = "addr2line -e " + exec_path + " -f -C " + addr;
auto r = sh(cmd);
std::regex re2("\\n$");
auto r2 = std::regex_replace(r, re2, "");
std::cout << r2 << std::endl;
}
}
free(bt_syms);
}
void test_m() {
print_backtrace();
}
int main() {
test_m();
return 0;
}
output:
/home/roroco/Dropbox/c/ro-c/cmake-build-debug/ex/test_backtrace_with_line_number
test_m()
/home/roroco/Dropbox/c/ro-c/ex/test_backtrace_with_line_number.cpp:57
main
/home/roroco/Dropbox/c/ro-c/ex/test_backtrace_with_line_number.cpp:61
??
??:0
"??" and "??:0" since this trace is in libc, not in my source
The one of solutions is to start a gdb with "bt"-script in failed assert handler. It is not very easy to integrate such gdb-starting, but It will give you both backtrace and args and demangle names (or you can pass gdb output via c++filt programm).
Both programms (gdb and c++filt) will be not linked into your application, so GPL will not require you to opensource complete application.
The same approach (exec a GPL programme) you can use with backtrace-symbols. Just generate ascii list of %eip's and map of exec file (/proc/self/maps) and pass it to separate binary.
You can use DeathHandler - small C++ class which does everything for you, reliable.
I suppose line numbers are related to current eip value, right?
SOLUTION 1:
Then you can use something like GetThreadContext(), except that you're working on linux. I googled around a bit and found something similar, ptrace():
The ptrace() system call provides a
means by which a parent process may
observe and control the execution of
another process, and examine and
change its core image and registers. [...]
The parent can initiate a trace by
calling fork(2) and having the
resulting child do a PTRACE_TRACEME,
followed (typically) by an exec(3).
Alternatively, the parent may commence
trace of an existing process using
PTRACE_ATTACH.
Now I was thinking, you can do a 'main' program which checks for signals that are sent to its child, the real program you're working on. after fork() it call waitid():
All of these system calls are used to
wait for state changes in a child of
the calling process, and obtain
information about the child whose
state has changed.
and if a SIGSEGV (or something similar) is caught call ptrace() to obtain eip's value.
PS: I've never used these system calls (well, actually, I've never seen them before ;) so I don't know if it's possible neither can help you. At least I hope these links are useful. ;)
SOLUTION 2:
The first solution is quite complicated, right? I came up with a much simpler one: using signal() catch the signals you are interested in and call a simple function that reads the eip value stored in the stack:
...
signal(SIGSEGV, sig_handler);
...
void sig_handler(int signum)
{
int eip_value;
asm {
push eax;
mov eax, [ebp - 4]
mov eip_value, eax
pop eax
}
// now you have the address of the
// **next** instruction after the
// SIGSEGV was received
}
That asm syntax is Borland's one, just adapt it to GAS. ;)
Here's my third answer -- still trying to take advantage of core dumps.
It wasn't completely clear in the question whether the "assert-like" macros were supposed to terminate the application (the way assert does) or they were supposed to continue executing after generating their stack-trace.
In this answer, I'm addressing the case where you want to show a stack-trace and continue executing. I wrote the coredump() function below to generate a core dump, automatically extract the stack-trace from it, then continue executing the program.
Usage is the same as that of assert(). The difference, of course, is that assert() terminates the program but coredump_assert() does not.
#include <iostream>
#include <sys/resource.h>
#include <cstdio>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <boost/lexical_cast.hpp>
#include <string>
#include <sys/wait.h>
#include <unistd.h>
std::string exename;
// expression argument is for diagnostic purposes (shows up in call-stack)
void coredump( char const * expression )
{
pid_t childpid = fork();
if ( childpid == 0 ) // child process generates core dump
{
rlimit core_limit = { RLIM_INFINITY, RLIM_INFINITY };
setrlimit( RLIMIT_CORE, &core_limit ); // enable core dumps
abort(); // terminate child process and generate core dump
}
// give each core-file a unique name
if ( childpid > 0 ) waitpid( childpid, 0, 0 );
static int count=0;
using std::string;
string pid = boost::lexical_cast<string>(getpid());
string newcorename = "core-"+boost::lexical_cast<string>(count++)+"."+pid;
string rawcorename = "core."+boost::lexical_cast<string>(childpid);
int rename_rval = rename(rawcorename.c_str(),newcorename.c_str()); // try with core.PID
if ( rename_rval == -1 ) rename_rval = rename("core",newcorename.c_str()); // try with just core
if ( rename_rval == -1 ) std::cerr<<"failed to capture core file\n";
#if 1 // optional: dump stack trace and delete core file
string cmd = "( CMDFILE=$(mktemp); echo 'bt' >${CMDFILE}; gdb 2>/dev/null --batch -x ${CMDFILE} "+exename+" "+newcorename+" ; unlink ${CMDFILE} )";
int system_rval = system( ("bash -c '"+cmd+"'").c_str() );
if ( system_rval == -1 ) std::cerr.flush(), perror("system() failed during stack trace"), fflush(stderr);
unlink( newcorename.c_str() );
#endif
}
#ifdef NDEBUG
#define coredump_assert( expression ) ((void)(expression))
#else
#define coredump_assert( expression ) do { if ( !(expression) ) { coredump( #expression ); } } while (0)
#endif
void recursive( int i=0 )
{
coredump_assert( i < 2 );
if ( i < 4 ) recursive(i+1);
}
int main( int argc, char * argv[] )
{
exename = argv[0]; // this is used to generate the stack trace
recursive();
}
When I run the program, it displays three stack traces...
Core was generated by `./temp.exe'.
Program terminated with signal 6, Aborted.
[New process 24251]
#0 0x00007f2818ac9fb5 in raise () from /lib/libc.so.6
#0 0x00007f2818ac9fb5 in raise () from /lib/libc.so.6
#1 0x00007f2818acbbc3 in abort () from /lib/libc.so.6
#2 0x0000000000401a0e in coredump (expression=0x403303 "i < 2") at ./demo3.cpp:29
#3 0x0000000000401f5f in recursive (i=2) at ./demo3.cpp:60
#4 0x0000000000401f70 in recursive (i=1) at ./demo3.cpp:61
#5 0x0000000000401f70 in recursive (i=0) at ./demo3.cpp:61
#6 0x0000000000401f8b in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffc229eb98) at ./demo3.cpp:66
Core was generated by `./temp.exe'.
Program terminated with signal 6, Aborted.
[New process 24259]
#0 0x00007f2818ac9fb5 in raise () from /lib/libc.so.6
#0 0x00007f2818ac9fb5 in raise () from /lib/libc.so.6
#1 0x00007f2818acbbc3 in abort () from /lib/libc.so.6
#2 0x0000000000401a0e in coredump (expression=0x403303 "i < 2") at ./demo3.cpp:29
#3 0x0000000000401f5f in recursive (i=3) at ./demo3.cpp:60
#4 0x0000000000401f70 in recursive (i=2) at ./demo3.cpp:61
#5 0x0000000000401f70 in recursive (i=1) at ./demo3.cpp:61
#6 0x0000000000401f70 in recursive (i=0) at ./demo3.cpp:61
#7 0x0000000000401f8b in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffc229eb98) at ./demo3.cpp:66
Core was generated by `./temp.exe'.
Program terminated with signal 6, Aborted.
[New process 24267]
#0 0x00007f2818ac9fb5 in raise () from /lib/libc.so.6
#0 0x00007f2818ac9fb5 in raise () from /lib/libc.so.6
#1 0x00007f2818acbbc3 in abort () from /lib/libc.so.6
#2 0x0000000000401a0e in coredump (expression=0x403303 "i < 2") at ./demo3.cpp:29
#3 0x0000000000401f5f in recursive (i=4) at ./demo3.cpp:60
#4 0x0000000000401f70 in recursive (i=3) at ./demo3.cpp:61
#5 0x0000000000401f70 in recursive (i=2) at ./demo3.cpp:61
#6 0x0000000000401f70 in recursive (i=1) at ./demo3.cpp:61
#7 0x0000000000401f70 in recursive (i=0) at ./demo3.cpp:61
#8 0x0000000000401f8b in main (argc=1, argv=0x7fffc229eb98) at ./demo3.cpp:66
I had to do this in a production environment with many constraints, so I wanted to explain the advantages and disadvantages of the already posted methods.
attach GDB
+ very simple and robust
- Slow for large programs because GDB insists on loading the entire address to line # database upfront instead of lazily
- Interferes with signal handling. When GDB is attached, it intercepts signals like SIGINT (ctrl-c), which will cause the program to get stuck at the GDB interactive prompt? if some other process routinely sends such signals. Maybe there's some way around it, but this made GDB unusable in my case. You can still use it if you only care about printing a call stack once when your program crashes, but not multiple times.
addr2line. Here's an alternate solution that doesn't use backtrace_symbols.
+ Doesn't allocate from the heap, which is unsafe inside a signal handler
+ Don't need to parse output of backtrace_symbols
- Won't work on MacOS, which doesn't have dladdr1. You can use _dyld_get_image_vmaddr_slide instead, which returns the same offset as link_map::l_addr.
- Requires adding negative offset or else the translated line # will be 1 greater. backtrace_symbols does this for you
#include <execinfo.h>
#include <link.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
// converts a function's address in memory to its VMA address in the executable file. VMA is what addr2line expects
size_t ConvertToVMA(size_t addr)
{
Dl_info info;
link_map* link_map;
dladdr1((void*)addr,&info,(void**)&link_map,RTLD_DL_LINKMAP);
return addr-link_map->l_addr;
}
void PrintCallStack()
{
void *callstack[128];
int frame_count = backtrace(callstack, sizeof(callstack)/sizeof(callstack[0]));
for (int i = 0; i < frame_count; i++)
{
char location[1024];
Dl_info info;
if(dladdr(callstack[i],&info))
{
char command[256];
size_t VMA_addr=ConvertToVMA((size_t)callstack[i]);
//if(i!=crash_depth)
VMA_addr-=1; // https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11579509/wrong-line-numbers-from-addr2line/63841497#63841497
snprintf(command,sizeof(command),"addr2line -e %s -Ci %zx",info.dli_fname,VMA_addr);
system(command);
}
}
}
void Foo()
{
PrintCallStack();
}
int main()
{
Foo();
return 0;
}
I also want to clarify what addresses backtrace and backtrace_symbols generate and what addr2line expects.
addr2line expects FooVMA or if you're using --section=.text, then Foofile - textfile. backtrace returns Foomem. backtrace_symbols generates FooVMA somewhere.
One big mistake I made and saw in several other posts was assuming VMAbase = 0 or FooVMA = Foofile = Foomem - ELFmem, which is easy to calculate.
That often works, but for some compilers (i.e. linker scripts) use VMAbase > 0. Examples would be the GCC 5.4 on Ubuntu 16 (0x400000) and clang 11 on MacOS (0x100000000).
For shared libs, it's always 0. Seems VMAbase was only meaningful for non-position independent code. Otherwise it has no effect on where the EXE is loaded in memory.
Also, neither karlphillip's nor this one requires compiling with -rdynamic. That will increase the binary size, especially for a large C++ program or shared lib, with useless entries in the dynamic symbol table that never get imported
AFAICS all of the solutions provided so far won't print functions names and line numbers from shared libraries. That's what I needed, so i altered karlphillip's solution (and some other answer from a similar question) to resolve shared library addresses using /proc/id/maps.
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <inttypes.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <execinfo.h>
#include <stdbool.h>
struct Region { // one mapped file, for example a shared library
uintptr_t start;
uintptr_t end;
char* path;
};
static struct Region* getRegions(int* size) {
// parse /proc/self/maps and get list of mapped files
FILE* file;
int allocated = 10;
*size = 0;
struct Region* res;
uintptr_t regionStart = 0x00000000;
uintptr_t regionEnd = 0x00000000;
char* regionPath = "";
uintmax_t matchedStart;
uintmax_t matchedEnd;
char* matchedPath;
res = (struct Region*)malloc(sizeof(struct Region) * allocated);
file = fopen("/proc/self/maps", "r");
while (!feof(file)) {
fscanf(file, "%jx-%jx %*s %*s %*s %*s%*[ ]%m[^\n]\n", &matchedStart, &matchedEnd, &matchedPath);
bool bothNull = matchedPath == 0x0 && regionPath == 0x0;
bool similar = matchedPath && regionPath && !strcmp(matchedPath, regionPath);
if(bothNull || similar) {
free(matchedPath);
regionEnd = matchedEnd;
} else {
if(*size == allocated) {
allocated *= 2;
res = (struct Region*)realloc(res, sizeof(struct Region) * allocated);
}
res[*size].start = regionStart;
res[*size].end = regionEnd;
res[*size].path = regionPath;
(*size)++;
regionStart = matchedStart;
regionEnd = matchedEnd;
regionPath = matchedPath;
}
}
return res;
}
struct SemiResolvedAddress {
char* path;
uintptr_t offset;
};
static struct SemiResolvedAddress semiResolve(struct Region* regions, int regionsNum, uintptr_t address) {
// convert address from our address space to
// address suitable fo addr2line
struct Region* region;
struct SemiResolvedAddress res = {"", address};
for(region = regions; region < regions+regionsNum; region++) {
if(address >= region->start && address < region->end) {
res.path = region->path;
res.offset = address - region->start;
}
}
return res;
}
void printStacktraceWithLines(unsigned int max_frames)
{
int regionsNum;
fprintf(stderr, "stack trace:\n");
// storage array for stack trace address data
void* addrlist[max_frames+1];
// retrieve current stack addresses
int addrlen = backtrace(addrlist, sizeof(addrlist) / sizeof(void*));
if (addrlen == 0) {
fprintf(stderr, " <empty, possibly corrupt>\n");
return;
}
struct Region* regions = getRegions(&regionsNum);
for (int i = 1; i < addrlen; i++)
{
struct SemiResolvedAddress hres =
semiResolve(regions, regionsNum, (uintptr_t)(addrlist[i]));
char syscom[256];
sprintf(syscom, "addr2line -C -f -p -a -e %s 0x%jx", hres.path, (intmax_t)(hres.offset));
system(syscom);
}
free(regions);
}
C++23 <stacktrace>
Finally, this has arrived! More details/comparison with other systems at: print call stack in C or C++
stacktrace.cpp
#include <iostream>
#include <stacktrace>
void my_func_2(void) {
std::cout << std::stacktrace::current(); // Line 5
}
void my_func_1(double f) {
(void)f;
my_func_2(); // Line 10
}
void my_func_1(int i) {
(void)i;
my_func_2(); // Line 15
}
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
my_func_1(1); // Line 19
my_func_1(2.0); // Line 20
}
GCC 12.1.0 from Ubuntu 22.04 does not have support compiled in, so for now I built it from source as per: How to edit and re-build the GCC libstdc++ C++ standard library source? and set --enable-libstdcxx-backtrace=yes, and it worked!
Compile and run:
g++ -ggdb3 -O2 -std=c++23 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic -o stacktrace.out stacktrace.cpp -lstdc++_libbacktrace
./stacktrace.out
Output:
0# my_func_2() at /home/ciro/stacktrace.cpp:5
1# my_func_1(int) at /home/ciro/stacktrace.cpp:15
2# at :0
3# at :0
4# at :0
5#
0# my_func_2() at /home/ciro/stacktrace.cpp:5
1# my_func_1(double) at /home/ciro/stacktrace.cpp:10
2# at :0
3# at :0
4# at :0
5#
The trace is not perfect (missing main line) because of optimization I think. With -O0 it is better:
0# my_func_2() at /home/ciro/stacktrace.cpp:5
1# my_func_1(int) at /home/ciro/stacktrace.cpp:15
2# at /home/ciro/stacktrace.cpp:19
3# at :0
4# at :0
5# at :0
6#
0# my_func_2() at /home/ciro/stacktrace.cpp:5
1# my_func_1(double) at /home/ciro/stacktrace.cpp:10
2# at /home/ciro/stacktrace.cpp:20
3# at :0
4# at :0
5# at :0
6#
I don't know why the name main is missing, but the line is there.
The "extra" lines after main like:
3# at :0
4# at :0
5# at :0
6#
are probably stuff that runs before main and that ends up calling main: What happens before main in C++?