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BACKTRACE(3) FreeBSD Library Functions Manual BACKTRACE(3)
NAME
backtrace - fill in the backtrace of the currently executing thread
LIBRARY
Backtrace Information Library (libexecinfo, -lexecinfo)
SYNOPSIS
#include <execinfo.h>
size_t
backtrace(void **addrlist, size_t len);
char **
backtrace_symbols(void * const *addrlist, size_t len);
int
backtrace_symbols_fd(void * const *addrlist, size_t len, int fd);
char **
backtrace_symbols_fmt(void * const *addrlist, size_t len,
const char *fmt);
int
backtrace_symbols_fd_fmt(void * const *addrlist, size_t len, int fd,
const char *fmt);
DESCRIPTION
The backtrace() function places into the array pointed by addrlist the
array of the values of the program counter for each frame called up to
len frames. The number of frames found (which can be fewer than len) is
returned.
The backtrace_symbols_fmt() function takes an array of previously filled
addresses from backtrace() in addrlist of len elements, and uses fmt to
format them. The formatting characters available are:
a The numeric address of each element as would be printed using
%p.
n The name of the nearest function symbol (smaller than the
address element) as determined by dladdr(3) if the symbol was
dynamic, or looked up in the executable if static and the /proc
filesystem is available to determine the executable path.
d The difference of the symbol address and the address element
printed using 0x%tx.
D The difference of the symbol address and the address element
printed using +0x%tx if non-zero, or nothing if zero.
f The filename of the symbol as determined by dladdr(3).
The array of formatted strings is returned as a contiguous memory address
which can be freed by a single free(3).
The backtrace_symbols() function is equivalent of calling
backtrace_symbols_fmt() with a format argument of %a <%n%D> at %f
The backtrace() function returns the number of elements that were filled
in the backtrace. The backtrace_symbols() and backtrace_symbols_fmt()
return a string array on success, and NULL on failure, setting errno.
Diagnostic output may also be produced by the ELF symbol lookup
functions.
SEE ALSO
dladdr(3), elf(3)
HISTORY
The backtrace() library of functions first appeared in NetBSD 7.0 and
FreeBSD 10.0.
BUGS
1. Errors should not be printed but communicated to the caller
differently.
2. Because these functions use elf(3) this is a separate library
instead of being part of libc/libutil so that no library
dependencies are introduced.
3. The Linux versions of the functions (there are no _fmt variants) use
int instead of size_t arguments.
FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11 December 12, 2015 FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11