The Art of Debugging with GDB, DDD, and Eclipse

Debugging is of central importance to successful software development, and yet many beginning programmers are unaware of the techniques they can use to reduce the time they spend finding and fixing programming errors. GDB, a popular open source debugger, allows a programmer to trace program execution line by line, set breakpoints, inspect variables, and look at what the program is doing at any given time. DDD is a popular GUI front end for GDB, while Eclipse provides a complete integrated development environment.

Using an assortment of real-world coding errors—from simple typos to major logical blunders—The Art of Debugging with GDB, DDD, and Eclipse discusses how to manage memory, understand core dumps, and trace programming errors to their root cause. The book covers topics other debugging books omit—such as threaded, server/client, GUI, and parallel programming—as well as how to avoid common debugging pitfalls. You'll also learn about techniques and tools you can use to prevent errors, saving yourself valuable time and effort.

Contenidos

Introduction

Chapter 1: Some Preliminaries, for Beginners and Pros

Chapter 2: Stopping to Take a Look Around

Chapter 3: Inspecting and Setting Variables

Chapter 4: When a Program Crashes

Chapter 5: Debugging in a Multiple-Activities Context

Chapter 6: Special Topics

Chapter 7: Other Tools

Chapter 8: Using GDB/DDD for Other Languages

Más información

Editado: Julio 2008

256

ISBN-10: 1-59327-174-3

ISBN-13: 978-1-59327-174-9

Sobre los autores

Norman Matloff, a computer science professor at UC Davis, is the author of several popular public-domain software packages and online tutorials.

Peter Jay Salzman received his doctorate in theoretical physics at UC Davis and founded the Linux Users' Group of Davis. He also maintains several popular online HOWTOs.