Generate Core Dump Files

If you want your program generates core dump files (including stack trace) when it encounters a segmentation fault, remember to set the following shell option

ulimit -c unlimited

Before running your program.

Once the core file is generated (say core), we can check the stack trace using GDB:

gdb program_file core

Then type GDB command

where

which will show you the stack trace.

Special Notes for Cygwin

When a process (i.e. foo.exe) cores, a default stackdump foo.exe.stackdump is generated. This stackdump contains (among other things) stack frames and functions addresses. You can make some sense of it by using the `addr2line' utility, but it's not as convenient as using a debugger.

Which takes me to the actual useful bit on information in this post. You can instruct Cygwin to start your gdb debugger just in time when an fault occurs or have Cygwin generate a real core dump.

To achieve this, add `error_start=action' to the Cygwin environment variable:

# start gdb
export CYGWIN="$CYGWIN error_start=gdb -nw %1 %2"

# generate core dump
export CYGWIN="$CYGWIN error_start=dumper -d %1 %2"