[TUHS] SDB debugger

[Larry McVoy]

So I definitely remember adb, I liked it for the same reasons that Rob
did, it told you the truth.

I also remember using a sdb debugger, not sure if it was at Sun or 
when I was doing a Sys V port.  I liked it, it was reasonable.

I think dbx ended up becoming the one I used on BSD.  Gdb eventually
got good enough but I'm with Rob, it was a mess early on.

But truth be known, I'm sort of a printf() debugger.  The main thing
I use gdb for is a stack trace, that's usually enough.  The BitKeeper
source has this "gem":

void
gdb_backtrace(void)
{
        FILE    *f;
        char    *cmd;

        unless (getenv("_BK_BACKTRACE")) return;
        unless ((f = efopen("BK_TTYPRINTF")) ||
            (f = fopen(DEV_TTY, "w"))) {
                f = stderr;
        }
        cmd = aprintf("gdb -batch -ex backtrace '%s/bk' %u 1>&%d 2>&%d",
            bin, getpid(), fileno(f), fileno(f));

        system(cmd);
        free(cmd);
        if (f != stderr) fclose(f);
}


On Fri, May 01, 2020 at 10:52:49PM -0400, Doug McIlroy wrote:
> >  Does anyone know if dbx ended up 8 or 9th
> 
> I believe the only debuggers on research machines were
> db      v1-v6
> adb     v7,v9,v10
> cdb     v3-v6
> sdb     v8-v9
> pi      v8-v10
> 
> Doug

-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm