Tool to trace local function calls in Linux

Assuming you only want to be notified for specific functions, you can do it like this:

compile with debug informations (as you already have symbol informations, you probably also have enough debugs in)

given

#include <iostream>

int fac(int n) {
    if(n == 0)
        return 1;
    return n * fac(n-1);
}

int main()
{
    for(int i=0;i<4;i++)
        std::cout << fac(i) << std::endl;
}

Use gdb to trace:

[js@HOST2 cpp]$ g++ -g3 test.cpp
[js@HOST2 cpp]$ gdb ./a.out
(gdb) b fac
Breakpoint 1 at 0x804866a: file test.cpp, line 4.
(gdb) commands 1
Type commands for when breakpoint 1 is hit, one per line.
End with a line saying just "end".
>silent
>bt 1
>c
>end
(gdb) run
Starting program: /home/js/cpp/a.out
#0  fac (n=0) at test.cpp:4
1
#0  fac (n=1) at test.cpp:4
#0  fac (n=0) at test.cpp:4
1
#0  fac (n=2) at test.cpp:4
#0  fac (n=1) at test.cpp:4
#0  fac (n=0) at test.cpp:4
2
#0  fac (n=3) at test.cpp:4
#0  fac (n=2) at test.cpp:4
#0  fac (n=1) at test.cpp:4
#0  fac (n=0) at test.cpp:4
6

Program exited normally.
(gdb)

Here is what i do to collect all function’s addresses:

tmp=$(mktemp)
readelf -s ./a.out | gawk '
{ 
  if($4 == "FUNC" && $2 != 0) { 
    print "# code for " $NF; 
    print "b *0x" $2; 
    print "commands"; 
    print "silent"; 
    print "bt 1"; 
    print "c"; 
    print "end"; 
    print ""; 
  } 
}' > $tmp; 
gdb --command=$tmp ./a.out; 
rm -f $tmp

Note that instead of just printing the current frame(bt 1), you can do anything you like, printing the value of some global, executing some shell command or mailing something if it hits the fatal_bomb_exploded function 🙂 Sadly, gcc outputs some “Current Language changed” messages in between. But that’s easily grepped out. No big deal.