Logging stacktrace for a legacy C program

[Jeff Wang]

Hi all,

I will need to address diagnosability of a legacy C program (running in Linux) by logging a stacktrace when a crash happens.

I have a few questions. I am not a C/C++ programmer so please bear with me :-).

1. crashpad is written in C++. I know that C can call C++ with wrapper. So it should be possible to use crashpad in the legacy C program, correct? Also can you elaborate what might entail in addition to C wrappers?

2. My use case is to log stacktrace only and the program is running in Linux only. From reading crashpad documentation, it seems crashpad will need an extra process (crashpad handler) which receives crash metadata from crashpad embedder (the legacy C program). Is there a way to eliminate the extra process?
3. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4636456/how-to-get-a-stack-trace-for-c-using-gcc-with-line-number-information shows a way to generate a stacktrace. I am wondering if it will be a good solution assuming I only need to log it and the OS is Linux.

Thanks,

Jeff

[Joshua Peraza]

On Sun, Jan 31, 2021 at 9:19 PM Jeff Wang <zhifeng...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

I will need to address diagnosability of a legacy C program (running in Linux) by logging a stacktrace when a crash happens.

I have a few questions. I am not a C/C++ programmer so please bear with me :-).

1. crashpad is written in C++. I know that C can call C++ with wrapper. So it should be possible to use crashpad in the legacy C program, correct? Also can you elaborate what might entail in addition to C wrappers?

2. My use case is to log stacktrace only and the program is running in Linux only. From reading crashpad documentation, it seems crashpad will need an extra process (crashpad handler) which receives crash metadata from crashpad embedder (the legacy C program). Is there a way to eliminate the extra process?

It doesn't sound like Crashpad is the right fit for your project. Crashpad generates minidumps, which are like core dumps and can be used with a debugger like LLDB.

 

3. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4636456/how-to-get-a-stack-trace-for-c-using-gcc-with-line-number-information shows a way to generate a stacktrace. I am wondering if it will be a good solution assuming I only need to log it and the OS is Linux.

Thanks,

Jeff

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[Jeff Wang]

Thanks for the reply.

Are there integration documentations available, especially for C program? I found an integration guide for breakpad, https://chromium.googlesource.com/breakpad/breakpad/+/master/docs/linux_starter_guide.md, but not crashpad.

Thanks,

Jeff