Friday, October 15, 2010

Ubuntu command: strace

Greetings,

I recently found this Linux program called strace. Basically it monitors the OS API calls used by a particular application and shows them (in C format). It's great for debugging or just seeing what's going on in a program. It can attach to a running program as well.

I found great value in attaching an strace to a long-running rm command because hours of a blinking cursor will freak me out.

It's good stuff.