[Chapter 20] 20.2 The Dbx Debugger

20.2 The Dbx Debugger

Dbx can be used to debug programs written in C, C++, FORTRAN, and Pascal. Dbx commands can be stored in a start-up .dbxinit file that resides in the current directory or in the user's home directory. These commands are executed just before reading the symbol table. The command-line syntax for dbx is as follows:

dbx [options ] [objfile [corefile ]]

20.2.1 Options

-c cmd: Run dbx cmd after initialization.
-C: Collect profile data for debugged program.
-e: Echo input commands on standard output.
-i: Act as if standard input is a terminal.
-I dir: Add dir to the directory search path. The dbx command use resets the search path.
-kbd: Debug a program that puts the keyboard in up-down translation mode.
-P file_des: Pipe output to the debugger command via file descriptor file_des . debugger passes this option automatically.
-q: Suppress messages during loading (useful during auto-traceback).
-r: Execute objfile right away, then wait for user response from the keyboard.
-s file: Read initialization commands from start-up file .
-sr tmp: Like -s , but then delete start-up file (tmp ).
- pid: Debug a currently running program whose process ID is pid (used mainly for auto-traceback).

20.2.2 Alphabetical Summary of Commands

Within dbx, the most useful commands are run , where , print , and stop . Use help to summarize the available commands. In the listing below, the term func is used to represent either a procedure or a function.