Exploring Debugger (ITI8510)

Real-Time Operating Systems and Systems Programming

Basic Linux command-line and utilities for accessing it Standard Streams Stack Exploration Exploring Debugger Signals Threads Processes File Attributes Reading Binary Files LAB: Hufmann Encoder Network Sockets Optimization (mmap() helps here)

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This lab will show how a debugger could be used to explore a running program. We also try to use objdump program to disassembling.

Compilation

Since the compiler by default wants to generate the smallest possible executable (as far as effortless compilation is concerned), it removes data about function names from the file (it's called the symbol table). To prevent stripping the symbol table from the file, use -g for compilation.

gcc -g filename.c -o filename

Thus the need to create makefile for easier compilation.

Why the symbol table is needed? Debugger uses it to provide valuable additional data while debugging. Note that in the world of embedded real-time systems, any modifications to the executable, even the -g or optimizations might affect the performance characteristics.

In short: while developing a program, use the -g option for compilation.