Using dbx on AIX

UNIX AIX
1

Hi,

We are porting a virtual machine application which emits native PowerPC instructions. The instructions are written to the data segment and are then executed, similar to the JIT / hot spot technology used in the Java VM.

The problem is that the AIX debugger (dbx) will not show me stack frames which contain the native code, presumably because they live in the data segment and not the code segment. Does anyone know a way around this? I'm thinking there must be someone out there that has done this because porting the Java VM to AIX would encounter the same issue.

We use xlC_r version 10 to compile and link the (64 bit) app on AIX 5.3.

I would *love* to use gdb instead of dbx to do this, but unfortunately I cannot get any version of gdb to work correctly with 64 bit programs on AIX (gdb does work OK with 32 bit programs).

thanks in advance for any help....

Norm Green
GemStone Systems Inc.

2

It sounds like you need kdb not dbx in AIX

pSeries and AIX Information Center

pSeries and AIX Information Center

HTH

3

Thanks for the suggestion but I'm not sure kdb will solve my problem. For starters, this message appears on the kdb man page:

Note: Stack tracing of the current process on a running system does not work.

nrg

4

procstack may be the answer then, there are many proc* commands so have a look around while there.

pSeries and AIX Information Center