how to get a stack trace from dump file programatically on Windows.

Question

I want to retrieve stack trace from a user dump file programmatically . There is this user dump at known location and i want to extract just the stack trace out of it and put that in a plain text file - is there a way to do that ?

NOTE : I can do it manually - Open windbg and type "k" command - but as i mentioned earlier i want to do this programmatically.

Thanks

Answer 1

I wrote a article about dumping the stack in C/C++ with Windows and Unix/Linux at DDJ some years ago. It does not use a cordump, but it writes stack frames into a logfile, on internal errors, or when the OS determines a Application fault.

Maybe it helps you:

See http://www.ddj.com/architect/185300443

Answer 2

you should check the windbg sdk subfolder with examples on how dbgeng.dll can be used programmatically.
code sample:

 PSTR g_DumpFile;
 PSTR g_ImagePath;
 PSTR g_SymbolPath;

 ULONG64 g_TraceFrom[3];

 IDebugClient* g_Client;
 IDebugControl* g_Control;
 IDebugSymbols* g_Symbols;

  void CreateInterfaces(void)
  {
    HRESULT Status;

    // Start things off by getting an initial interface from
    // the engine.  This can be any engine interface but is
    // generally IDebugClient as the client interface is
    // where sessions are started.
    if ((Status = DebugCreate(__uuidof(IDebugClient),
                              (void**)&g_Client)) != S_OK)
    {
        Exit(1, "DebugCreate failed, 0x%X\n", Status);
    }

    // Query for some other interfaces that we'll need.
    if ((Status = g_Client->QueryInterface(__uuidof(IDebugControl),
                                           (void**)&g_Control)) != S_OK ||
        (Status = g_Client->QueryInterface(__uuidof(IDebugSymbols),
                                           (void**)&g_Symbols)) != S_OK)
    {
        Exit(1, "QueryInterface failed, 0x%X\n", Status);
    }
 }

 void
 DumpStack(void)
 {
    HRESULT Status;
    PDEBUG_STACK_FRAME Frames = NULL;
    int Count = 50;

    printf("\nFirst %d frames of the call stack:\n", Count);

    if (g_TraceFrom[0] || g_TraceFrom[1] || g_TraceFrom[2])
    {
        ULONG Filled;

        Frames = new DEBUG_STACK_FRAME[Count];
        if (Frames == NULL)
        {
            Exit(1, "Unable to allocate stack frames\n");
        }

        if ((Status = g_Control->
             GetStackTrace(g_TraceFrom[0], g_TraceFrom[1], g_TraceFrom[2],
                           Frames, Count, &Filled)) != S_OK)
        {
            Exit(1, "GetStackTrace failed, 0x%X\n", Status);
        }

        Count = Filled;
    }

    // Print the call stack.
    if ((Status = g_Control->
         OutputStackTrace(DEBUG_OUTCTL_ALL_CLIENTS, Frames,
                          Count, DEBUG_STACK_SOURCE_LINE |
                          DEBUG_STACK_FRAME_ADDRESSES |
                          DEBUG_STACK_COLUMN_NAMES |
                          DEBUG_STACK_FRAME_NUMBERS)) != S_OK)
    {
        Exit(1, "OutputStackTrace failed, 0x%X\n", Status);
    }

    delete[] Frames;
 }


 void __cdecl main(int Argc, __in_ecount(Argc) char** Argv)
 {
    CreateInterfaces();

    ParseCommandLine(Argc, Argv);

    ApplyCommandLineArguments();

    DumpStack();

    Exit(0, NULL);
 }