Running Linux, Fourth Edition

Chapter 14. Tools for Programmers

Many judge a computer system by the tools it offers its programmers. Unix systems have won the contest by many people’s standards, having developed a very rich set over the years. Leading the parade is the GNU debugger, gdb. In this chapter, we take a close look at this invaluable utility, and at a number of other auxiliary tools C programmers will find useful.

Even if you are not a programmer, you should consider using the Revision Control System (RCS). It provides one of the most reassuring protections a computer user could ask for — backups for everything you do to a file. If you delete a file by accident, or decide that everything you did for the past week was a mistake and should be ripped out, RCS can recover any version you want. If you are working on a larger project that involves either a large number of developers or a large number of directories (or both), Concurrent Versioning System (CVS) might be more suitable for you. It was originally based on RCS, but was rewritten from the ground up and provides many additional features. Currently, another rewrite from the ground up is taking place; that new tool will be called Subversion. It remains to be seen, however, whether it will replace CVS. Finally, the Linux kernel itself uses yet another versioning system, called BitKeeper.

Debugging with gdb

Are you one of those programmers who scoff at the very idea of using a debugger to trace through code? Is it your philosophy that if the code ...