can some tell me how to do this. I mean, i tried finding this out on my own but when I checked the man pages, i got a truckload of commands available pertaining to this task which in turn got me confused.
so my question is, if there is a simple straight forward(not necessarily easy) way to analyze core files on Solaris/HP-UX/Linux systems, please explain it to me.
thank you
There is a book that explains it (according to other post on this site - see this post. Or a search on Goggle comes up with some that may work for you.
(deleted link that said it was adb tutorial - it wasn't)
This is actually a frequently asked question. It's been answered several times before. And our search function will show you all the answers. The trouble is that they all say the same thing and you don't like the answer.
There are two types of core files...see this post for a discussion of that. adb can be used to analyse both types. But that "Panic!..." book focuses on the complete dump of all of memory that results from the kernel calling the function called "panic". HP-UX now calls these "crashdumps" to help avoid confusion between the two.
My copy of that book is at home and I can't remember it touches on anything besides panic dumps. Still it does indeed have an adb tutorial. The book is oriented to Solaris.
I gather that you are interested in the other type of core file which is the dump of a the data and stack segments of a particular process. Here is the answer from the last time you posed the question. And here is another answer.
All of the answers say the same thing. You need to use a degugger. If the program was specialled compiled to support a symbolic debugger, then you can use a symbolic debugger. Otherwise it is adb.