How do I access the `addr2line` functionality within my C++ program?

Question

I need to get the information provided by addr2line (source file and line from backtracing a function call) from within a C++ program.

I know I can call addr2line directly as a subprocess and I know that I can copy the source code of addr2line into my program (which is also GPL licensed). But the code looks complicated and I don't feel comfortable using it directly. What does bfd mean, anyway? I would prefer to use some function in the C++ STL library, because that would be cleaner.

I am working in a Linux environment.

Dramatist

libdwarf is what youre looking for – Utta

Thankd for the suggestion. I tried dwarfdump and it only prints where functions are declared, not where they are called. I couldn't find a decent documentation though... – Dramatist

bfd is the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_File_Descriptor_library (although originally it stood for the other meaning of BFD :) – Primaveras

You can see the can see the calls addr2line makes with ltrace, but you might not want to link against bfd directly yourself: lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/05/msg01086.html – Offhand

doh! So my only way is to call popen("addr2line","r") and parse the output! – Dramatist

Here you have a working implementation. github.com/albfan/bindutils-gdb/issues/1. Now is a system call, but its goal is to create a addr2line library. Seems pretty easy! – Sounder

Answer 1

You can try the function dladdr(). It uses the dynamic symbols of the program, not the debugging information (compile the program with gcc -rdynamic).

Also, you can check the backtrace library, or the higher level stacktrace library.
Not exactly what you are asking, but they may prove useful.

Clarhe

Thank you for the tipps. With dladdr() I get information only for dynamically linked code and only the filename, not the line, if I understand the manpage right. I am already using backtrace to get the address. What I need now is something to get the file and line out of the address. stacktrace is a mere wrapper for backtrace. – Dramatist

In addition to these, there is also the libunwind library: nongnu.org/libunwind – Thermopylae

@ArtoBendiken libunwind doesn't have an addr2line-like functionality. It only provides the offset – Nogood

Answer 2

Check the source code of bsd implementation of addr2line, it has only about 400 lines code. Change the source to a library function should be very easy. http://sourceforge.net/p/elftoolchain/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/addr2line/addr2line.c

Chapin