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Lab 6: Using the Debugger Solution
Introduction
The main purpose of this lab is to give you some practice using the debugger. Before that, we have one more string function for you to write.
Starting
As usual, go to Lab 6 on Markus and then pull your repo to trigger the downloading of the starter code.
More Practice with Strings
Complete the program copy.c according to the instructions in the starter code.
Using gdb
It's common for programmers to debug using print, at least for simple issues, but debugging with print statements will become increasingly difficult as we delve into systems programming. Now is the time to learn how to use a common C debugger, gdb . It'll seem hard at first, but you'll be thankful for these skills at the end of this course and in courses like CSC369.
To demonstrate that you've completed the lab, you'll submit a script record of your interactions on the command line to your git repository. Try it out by typing script then typing a few unix commands. Perhaps make a directory for your work on this lab or list the files in your current directory or whatever you wish... Then after you've done something, type exit . This will stop recording your actions and save them in a file named typescript . Check out the man page for script to see that you can give it a filename as an argument to override this default name.
The file overflow.c (in your repo in Lab6 ) contains a program to explore. You will change the values of SIZE and OVERFLOW to see what happens when OVERFLOW is bigger than SIZE .
First, read through the program and explain what it is doing aloud to yourself (or to some unsuspecting bystander, if you prefer). Notice that we are printing the addresses of the variables. The purpose of doing that is to show where the variables are placed in memory.
Next, compile and run the program as shown here:
gcc -Wall -std=gnu99 -g -o overflow overflow.c
./overflow
Don't miss the -g flag or gdb won't work properly. Check the values of before, a, and after -- did the program behave as expected?
Now change the value of OVERFLOW to 5. Compile the program and run it again. What changed? (If nothing changed -- if everything still seems okay -- then try this code on a lab machine. It depends on how the variables are placed into memory by the compiler, and your compiler may be doing something we didn't expect.)
Let's see why variables other than a were affected. The next step is to run the program in gdb . Here are a list of the 9 need-to-know commands in gdb:
gdb executable
start gdb on this executable
list [n]
list some of the code starting from line n or from the end of last call to list
https://q.utoronto.ca/courses/130688/assignments/243363 1/2
gdb_example.txt
4/15/2020
Lab 6
break [n or fun_name]
set a breakpoint either at line n or at the beginning of the function fun_name
run [args]
begin execution with these command-line arguments
next
execute one line
print variable or expression
print the value once
display variable or expression
print the value after every gdb command
continue
execute up to the next breakpoint
quit
bye-bye!
Try this out on your overflow executable. Start by typing gdb overflow . Set a breakpoint in main by typing break main , and then start the program running by typing run . You want to watch the values of a few variables, so use display to show the value of some variables. Do this for each variable you want to watch. Step through the program one line at a time using next (after you enter next once, you can execute another line by just hitting "enter"). Keep a close eye on the first element in after , and notice the final value of a . When the program terminates, type quit to leave gdb.
Now start gdb again but before you start, use script to record your interaction. (You'll submit this interaction.) This time make sure you watch the array after . It is pretty slow to step through every line of your code, so use list to find the line number of the for loop where we start to assign values to the array. Set a breakpoint on that line number and also set a breakpoint somewhere before that line. Start your program using run and it should run up to the first breakpoint. Then use continue to jump to the second breakpoint you set which should be the for loop. At any point, you can use continue to execute up to the next breakpoint. If you tried it again now, it should jump to the second pass through the loop.
Instead, use next to step through one line at a time. Watch the value of after[0] carefully. When it changes, print its address. (Yes, you can do " print &(after[0]) " inside gdb .) Then, print the address of a[4] . Does that help you understand what happened? Exit gdb .
(Say 'y' when it asks if you want to Quit anyway.) Then exit your script. Rename the script file you generated to gdb_example.txt and add it to your repository.
The last step is to try to make your program crash. (I had to set OVERFLOW to something like 5000 to get it to crash with a Segmentation fault.) Once you've found a value for OVERFLOW that produces a Segmentation fault, run the program in gdb without setting a breakpoint so that it runs automatically until the crash. Then use the backtrace command and the print command to investigate the value for i . Try backtrace full for even more helpful information. You don't need to record what you're doing on this step. We just want you to see the backtrace command.
Submitting Your Work
Make sure that gdb_example.txt is added to the Lab6 directory. Remember to add, commit and push all changes to copy.c and gdb_example.txt . Do not commit any executables or any other additional files.
We will be auto-testing your solution to copy.c so you must not change the signature. We will not be auto-grading your scripts but reading them. So if you have extra steps during your debugging, this is fine and you don't need to stress about the format of the output.
We aren't expecting that every student's will be the same.
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