When trying to find the precise point in your code that causes a crash, it is often useful to use gdb to debug the code. I always forget the basic syntax to get it running so here is a very simple overview. This is by no means exhaustive, but should serve as a jumping off point for using gdb.

Compiler Flags

The first thing to do is make sure that the flag -g is within your makefile or included in your gcc command. The line in the makefile should look something like this:

CFLAGS= -c -Wall -g

Where:

• -c - Compile but do not link the source files.
• -Wall - Warn All - Outputs all compiler warnings.
• -g - Debug - Produce debugging information

More info on these and other args can be found here.

Run gdb

Once the code (a.out) is compiled with the -g flag, run it using gdb:

s0675405@achray debug $ gdb a.out

Execute Code

Now, at the gdb prompt, give it any arguments and the code will run until it reaches an exception:

(gdb) run <arg1> <arg2> <arg3>

Backtrace

The last step is to get some detailed info on where an exception occurred, a good starting point from this is to use backtrace

(gdb) bt

There is obviously much more to gdb than what is here, but this guide will get you to the point of being able to better interrogate errors using the gdb man page.