Command Reference Guide

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adb(1) adb(1)

NAME

adb, adb64 - absolute debugger

SYNOPSIS

adb [-w][-Idir][-k][-m][-Ppid] objﬁl [corﬁl]

adb64 [-w][-Idir][-k][-m][-Ppid] objﬁl [corﬁl]

DESCRIPTION

The adb command executes a general-purpose debugging program that is sensitive to the underlying archi-

tecture of the processor and operating system on which it runs. It can be used to examine ﬁles and provide

a controlled environment for executing HP-UX programs.

adb calls adb64 to process 64 bit ﬁles.

objﬁl is normally an executable program ﬁle, or an HP-UX kernel (vmunix), preferably containing a symbol

table; if not, the symbolic features of adb cannot be used, although the ﬁle can still be examined. The

default for objﬁl is a.out.

corﬁl is assumed to be a core image ﬁle produced after executing objﬁl or an HP-UX crash ﬁle produced

from the objﬁl. The default for corﬁl is

core.

Requests to

adb are read from standard input and adb responds on standard output. If the -w ﬂag is

present, objﬁl is created (if necessary) and opened for reading and writing, to be modiﬁed using

adb. The

-I option speciﬁes a directory where ﬁles read with $< or $<< (see below) are sought; the default is

/usr/lib/adb . adb ignores QUIT; INTERRUPT causes return to the next adb command.

The following options are also supported:

-k Allows adb to read objﬁl as an HP-UX kernel ﬁle and corﬁl as an HP-UX crash dump. This also

allows virtual-to-physical address translation, useful for kernel debugging. In this case, corﬁl

should be an HP-UX crash dump or

/dev/mem. Without -k or -m, adb treats objﬁl as an

application program ﬁle and corﬁl as an application core ﬁle.

When

adb is invoked with this option, it sets up the context of the currently running process

using space registers four through seven. A user speciﬁed address is dereferenced by combining

it with the appropriate space register, depending on the quadrant in which the 32-bit address

lies.

When the current radix is not (decimal) ten, the -k option allows adb to support the notion of

long pointers or addresses in the form space.offset. Once a space is speciﬁed, all subsequent

addresses are dereferenced using that space until the user enters another long address. If a

space equal to (hexadecimal) 0xffffffff is used,

adb reverts to the previous context and uses space

registers four through seven to dereference 32-bit addresses.

-m Must be speciﬁed instead of -k when a core dump is written to multiple ﬁles.

When -m is used, corﬁl must be speciﬁed as the path name of the directory that contains system

core dump ﬁles. A command line using -m might look similar to the following:

adb -m /var/adm/crash/core.1/vmunix /var/adm/crash/core.1

Notice that when -m is speciﬁed on the command line, -k is not necessary.

-Ppid Causes adb to adopt process pid as a "traced" process (see ptrace(2)). This option is helpful for

debugging processes that were not originally run under the control of

adb.

Requests to adb follow the form:

[address][, count][command][;]

If address is present, dot is set to address. Initially dot is set to 0. For most commands, count speciﬁes the

number of times the command is to be executed. The default count is 1. address and count are expres-

sions.

The interpretation of an address depends on the context in which it is used. If a subprocess is being

debugged, addresses are interpreted in the address space of the subprocess. (For further details of address

mapping see Addresses below.)

HP-UX Release 11i: December 2000 − 1 − Section 1−−3

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