dbx (debugger)

{{Short description|Source-level debugger}}

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{{notability|Products|date=July 2011}}

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{{Infobox Software

| name = dbx

| logo =

| screenshot =

| screenshot size =

| caption =

| author = Mark Linton

| developer = Oracle Corporation

| released = {{Start date and age|1981}}

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| operating system = Unix and Unix-like

| genre = Debugger

| license = Free for download and use as described in the Sun Studio product license.

| website =

}}

dbx is a source-level debugger found primarily on Solaris, AIX, IRIX, Tru64 UNIX, Linux and BSD operating systems. It provides symbolic debugging for programs written in C, C++, Fortran, Pascal and Java. Useful features include stepping through programs one source line or machine instruction at a time. In addition to simply viewing operation of the program, variables can be manipulated and a wide range of expressions can be evaluated and displayed.

History

dbx was originally developed at University of California, Berkeley, by Mark Linton during the years 1981–1984{{cite conference |last1=Linton |first1=Mark A. |s2cid=15074926 |date=1990 |title=The Evolution of Dbx |book-title=USENIX Summer |pages=211–220 |conference=USENIX Summer 1990 Technical Conference |citeseerx=10.1.1.38.5985 }} and subsequently made its way to various vendors who had licensed BSD.

Availability

dbx is provided with AIX,{{cite web |url=https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/aix/7.3?topic=programs-dbx-symbolic-debug-program-overview |title=AIX 7.3 dbx symbolic debug program overview |publisher=IBM}} and was also provided with IRIX[https://web.archive.org/web/20160119165855/http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?coll=0650&db=man&fname=/usr/share/catman/u_man/cat1/dbx.z {{mono|dbx(1)}}] : Provides source-level debugging - SGI techpubs library and Tru64 UNIX.[https://web.archive.org/web/20040626133213/http://h30097.www3.hp.com/docs/base_doc/DOCUMENTATION/V51B_HTML/MAN/MAN1/0554____.HTM {{mono|dbx(1)}}] : source level debugger - HP Tru64 UNIX Section 1 Reference Pages

It is included as part of the Oracle Solaris Studio product from Oracle Corporation,{{cite web |url=https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E77782_01/html/E77793/index.html |title=Oracle Developer Studio 12.6: Debugging a Program With dbx |publisher=Oracle Corporation}} and is supported on both Solaris and Linux. It supports programs compiled with the Oracle Solaris Studio compilers and GCC.

It is also available on IBM z/OS systems, in the UNIX System Services component.{{cite web |url=https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/SSLTBW_3.1.0/pdf/bpxa600_v3r1.pdf |title=z/OS 3.1 UNIX System Services Programming Tools |publisher=IBM}} dbx for z/OS can debug programs written in C and C++, and can also perform machine level debugging. As of z/OS V1R5, dbx is able to debug programs using the DWARF debug format. z/OS V1R6 added support for debugging 64-bit programs.

GCC removed support for dbx in release 13.{{cite web | title=GCC Change notes | url=https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-13/changes.html}}

See also

References

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