backstrace (bs)

Searches for PATTERNS in each file that was opened by a process, by analyzing strace output.

This can be helpful when searching for some definition or symbol that was thrown in a compile error, traceback or exception message from a faulty program or failing build system.

Internally, pystrace is used to parse the strace log, and grep is used for searching and presenting the lines that match a pattern.

Example

Build failure:

$ make
src/my_ctrl/my_ctrl.cpp:85: error: ´struct CI::CI_Dark::CI_Dark_Ctrl::Foo_Type´ has no member named `Dark_Mode_Setting`

Use strace together with bs to search referenced files for patterns that are related to the failure:

$ strace -ttt -f -o strace.log make
src/my_ctrl/my_ctrl.cpp:85: error: ´struct CI::CI_Dark::CI_Dark_Ctrl::Foo_Type´ has no member named `Dark_Mode_Setting`

$ bs Foo_Type strace.log
../../../types/ci/ci_dark/my_ctrl_types.hpp:58:struct Foo_Type {
src/my_ctrl/my_ctrl.cpp:46: *dark_ctrl, CI::CI_Dark::CI_Dark_Ctrl::Foo_Type *ctrls);
src/my_ctrl/my_ctrl.cpp:43:           *dark_ctrl, CI::CI_Dark::CI_Dark_Ctrl::Foo_Type
src/my_ctrl/my_ctrl.cpp:85:                          Dark_Mode_Setting

Limitations

• strace must be executed with the -ttt format option, so the results can be presented in a timely order.
• PATTERNS are interpreted as basic regular expressions (the default option when using grep).