Hands on Debugging

In this course you will learn how to use the popular debugger GDB to find errors in your code. Examples will be shown primarily in C and C++, though the techniques can be applied to any language supported by GDB (e.g. Dlang, Objective-C, etc.). Learning how to use a debugger will allow you to save time when finding errors and spend more time building better software. So if understanding software, finding bugs, and fixing bugs is something you want to do more of, learn how to use the debugger!

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Course curriculum

1. GDB (linux), LLDB (Mac), or Visual Studio (Windows)
2. GDB on Linux (and lldb)
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3. GDB on Windows Subsystem for Linux
4. LLDB on Mac
1. Compile-time vs Run-time debugging
2. Compiler Errors (Understanding the compilers perspective)
3. Compilers cannot read our minds
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4. Treat Compiler Warnings (-Wall, -Werror, and -Wconversion) as Errors (Use C++ {}'s to your advantage)
5. Trick Leveraging multiple compilers
6. Using our Compilers
7. Tip: Write your code neatly
1. A Debugging Exercise (swap_buggy)
2. printf debugging (std::cout, console.log)
3. printf debugging (one more look) with DEBUG
1. GNU Debugger (GDB) - The Basics
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2. Why We Compile with Debug Symbols (-g)
3. Printing Values and Listing Source Code
4. Figuring out a Variable Type with 'whatis' and 'ptype' (info types)
5. More with ptype
6. Breakpoints (br and info) and Continue (c)
1. GDB the Text User Interface (TUI)
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2. Redirecting output from GDB (to another file or terminal)
3. Conditional Breakpoints
4. More ways to continue and step through code (advance, and until)
5. Watching (watch and rwatch) Variables
6. Breakpoints Part 2 (enable, disable, and save breakpoint)
7. Display and undisplay
8. Getting help in GDB (info)
1. The Program Stack
2. What is a Call Stack?
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3. Navigating the Call Stack with Backtrace
4. Understanding common errors - the segmentation fault
5. [Exercise] Segmentation Fault
6. [Solution] Segmentation Fault
7. [Concept] Understanding common errors -- the memory leak
8. Understanding common errors - Stack Overflow
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9. [Exercise] Memory Leak (And the address sanitizer)
10. [Solution] Memory Leak (And the address sanitizer)
1. Delta Debugging (i.e. Binary Search) Debugging Technique
2. Bug prevention - assert statement and static_assert
3. Investigating Code by Calling functions within GDB
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4. Attaching the Debugger to a Running Process
5. Core dumped -- and how to look at those files
6. Core dumped -- gcore for a running process
7. Examining Memory in GDB (and also hex)
1. Breakpoint commands -- save time!
2. defining your own commands
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3. gdb scripts
4. Shell commands within GDB (shell, make, and pipe)
5. Edit source files within GDB
1. Check and Setup GDB with Python (from source)
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2. Using Python within GDB
1. Set a variable value
2. Reverse Debugging
3. Debugging Multi-Threaded Programs
4. Bookmarks and Checkpoints (Save a snapshot of your program)
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1. Data Display Debugger - DDD
2. strace and ltrace
3. Installing and Using valgrind 3.19 (pronounced val-grinn)
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4. Using Valgrind and GDB together to fix a segfault and memory leak
5. Leaks for Mac Developers
6. cppcheck and Weffc++
1. Inspecting the Virtual Table for Inheritance (C++)
1. GDB Command Debug Levels (-g0 to -ggdb3)
1. Conclusion and next steps!
2. Free Resources
1. DLang

About this course

$19.99
73 lessons
5 hours of video content

Learn how to get yourself out of trouble by learning essential debugging skills.

I always tell my students, that understanding how to debug is one way to understand how a program works. Debuggers allow you to see inside of a program, understand the workflow the state of a program. If you're on a new project for instance, what better way to get familiar with the product than to step through it one line or function at a time. And of course, the main reason to learn debugging is because some estimate we spend up to 90% of our programming time debugging -- and now writing new code. Debugging is an essential skill, and you should learn at least the basics in this course!

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Reviews

Hear directly from students about the course!

An Absolute Must Have for C/C++ Developers!

Robert Strickland

This course has significantly improved my C/C++ systems engineering capabilities as well as overall knowledge of developing good C/C++ code. Immediately afte...

This course has significantly improved my C/C++ systems engineering capabilities as well as overall knowledge of developing good C/C++ code. Immediately after starting the course I was able to debug some shared memory issues in my codebase. I was thoroughly impressed with how Mike details debugging w/ GDB.

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FAQ

Is there a free preview available?

If you enroll on the website, you can view many of the lessons free. I also have a YouTube Channel that I think will give you an idea of my instruction style (as well as with a few free lessons on this course as well!)
Can I follow along using any debugger?

In this course I'm going to be using a terminal based debugger, GDB. GDB is surprising more powerful than folks think, and learning GDB from the terminal is optimal. GDB is also much more widely available. That said, you can probably use LLDB (GDB to LLDB command map ) to follow along with most lessons, but I strongly recommend using GDB for your platform.
Do I have to know C or C++ for this course?

Most of the examples are shown in C and C++ in this course. I purposefully try to use mostly C examples, because I think they are the simplest examples to follow along with. I would recommend you are comfortable with one of the languages. If you're comfortable with other languages (e.g. DLang or Objective-C), you can probably also follow along just fine. Code examples are provided in lessons for C and C++ however.
Do the lessons include source code?

Yes! Most every lesson where there is an exercise has a source file included. This will make it easy for you to follow along as I work through and show you different techniques of debugging.

Mike Shah