How to view call stack with dtrace

Question

Question:

• How to view call stack, return value and arguments of the simply program below, with dtrace

/** Trival code **/

 #include <stdio.h>

 int
 foo (int *a, int *b)
 {
     *a = *b;
     *b = 4;
     return 0;
 }  

 int
 main (void)
 {
     int a, b;
     a = 1;
     b = 2;
     foo (&a, &b);
     printf ("Value a: %d, Value b: %d\n", a, b); 
     return 0;
 }

Answer 1

First off, here's the script:

pid$target::foo:entry
{
    ustack();

    self->arg0 = arg0;
    self->arg1 = arg1;

    printf("arg0 = 0x%x\n", self->arg0);
    printf("*arg0 = %d\n", *(int *)copyin(self->arg0, 4));

    printf("arg1 = 0x%x\n", self->arg1);
    printf("*arg1 = %d\n", *(int *)copyin(self->arg1, 4));
}

pid$target::foo:return
{
    ustack();
    printf("arg0 = 0x%x\n", self->arg0);
    printf("*arg0 = %d\n", *(int *)copyin(self->arg0, 4));

    printf("arg1 = 0x%x\n", self->arg1);
    printf("*arg1 = %d\n", *(int *)copyin(self->arg1, 4));

    printf("return = %d\n", arg1);
}

How this works. ustack() prints the stack of the user process.

In an function entry, argN is the Nth argument to the function. Since the arguments are pointers, you need to use copyin() to copy in the actual data before you dereference it.

For a function return, you no longer have access to the function arguments. So you save the parameters for later use.

Finally, for a function return, you can access the value returned by the function with arg1.