Fun to Program – Utilities

TOC

This was originally written and created around 2013 and may require to be updated. (2021)

Utilities

Here is a list of basic utilities used for the programming.

You can find usage examples for the commands in this document if their lines are ending with *.

• POSIX shell (dash package) See Debain Reference
• GNU make (make package) See Debain Reference
• GNU C compiler (gcc package) *
  • See the gccintro package containing “Introduction to GCC by Brian J. Gough”: apt-get install gccintro (non-free GFDL package)
• GNU C++ compiler (g++ package) *
• GNU Debugger (gdb package) *
  • gdb -tui: Run GDB with TUI (full screen mode)
  • ddd package: The Data Display Debugger, a graphical debugger frontend
• GNU assembler, linker and binary utilities (binutils package) *
  • readelf - Displays information about ELF files.
  • objdump - Display information from object files.
    • Use this with --demangle for C++.
    • Use this with --disassemble to disassemble code.
  • nm - List symbols from object files.
    • Use this with --demangle for C++.
  • c++filt - Demangle C++ and Java symbols. *
    • This is useful for studying compilation results in assembly codes or ELF binaries.
    • Use abi::__cxa_demangle() in C++ source as http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/manual/ext_demangling.html[The GNU C++ Library Manual, Chapter 29. Demangling].
  • addr2line - Convert addresses into file names and line numbers.
  • ar - Create, modify, and extract from archives.
  • ranlib - Generate index to archive.
  • gprof - Display call graph profile data.
    • Speed your code with the GNU profiler IBM DeveloperWorks (2006)
    • HOWTO: using gprof with multithreaded applications
• Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries (libc-bin package)
  • ldd - Print shared library dependencies *
  • iconv - Convert encoding of given files from one encoding to another See Debain Reference
• perf - performance analysis tools for Linux (linux-base package) *
  • See The Unofficial Linux Perf Events Web-Page
• Remove cpp #ifdef lines from files (unifdef package) *
  • unifdef, unifdefall — Remove preprocessor conditionals from code
    • This is useful for avoiding distractions when studying code.
• Utility to list open files (lsof package)
  • lsof - List open files
• Utility for memory debugger
  • gcc with -fstack-protector - Stack smashing protector (SSP) *
  • valgrind package - A suite of tools for debugging and profiling programs
  • alleyoop package - Valgrind memory checker front-end for GNOME
  • electric-fence package - Library to detect buffer overruns and under-runs
    • a memory-usage debugger for C programs
    • LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/libefence.so.0.0 your-buggy-program
  • duma pckage - A fork of electric-fence with more features
    • a memory-usage debugger for C/C++ programs
    • LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/libefence.so.0.0 your-buggy-program
  • leaktracer package - Simple and efficient memory-leak tracer for C++ programs
    • LeakCheck leak-analyze - A memory-usage debugger for C++ programs
    • LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/LeakTracer.so your-buggy-program
  • libdmalloc-dev package - Debug memory allocation library (development files and doc)
    • Drop in replacement for the system’s malloc, realloc, calloc, free and other memory management routines.
• Utility to trace calls etc. like strace
  • strace - Trace system calls and signals *
  • ltrace - A library call tracer *
  • xtrace - Trace communication between X11 client and server
• Utility to analyze code statically
  • pylint - Python code static checker
  • splint - A tool for statically checking C programs
  • cppcheck - Tool for static C/C++ code analysis