View inside a process?
 

Hi,

Is there any program that allow us to view inside a process.

For example, if I'm debugging a program, and in a certain moment I would like to see how my stack is, what registers I'm using, which file descriptors I've open, etc...

And, is it possible programatically?

Thanks,

Most if not all of that can be done with gdb. I assume that by "programmatically" you mean, is there a language binding? Within the program, sure there's ways of displaying the current state - printf. I'm not sure I understand that last question, but definitely look up gdb.

Gdb should do that.

Just open the process exe with GDB and once inside GDB attach the process with the process pid.
$ gdb file.exe
gdb > attach <pid_of_file.exe>


If you want to see the system calls the process is making while running try this

$ strace -p <pid>

This will giv a cool output of the system calls the process is making,files being opened,sockets being connected etc.

$ ltrace -p <pid>

Will give info on library call the process makes.[like fprint,printf,etc...]

$ lsof | grep processname

Will give list of all files opened by that process.


/proc/pid/
Will have some info on process like the segments [code,data,stack] info , env info of that process.