cpplinks/debugging.md at master

C++ links: debugging: articles, documentation, software, and talks.

General

Program repair: Community-driven effort to facilitate discovery, access and systematization of data related to automated program repair research
- https://program-repair.org/
UNIX Debugger Translation Table: gdb, lldb, dbx, adb, sdb
- https://www.lurklurk.org/debuggers.html
Debug Adapter Protocol (DAP)
- defines the abstract protocol used between a development tool (e.g., IDE or editor) and a debugger
- https://microsoft.github.io/debug-adapter-protocol/
- https://github.com/microsoft/debug-adapter-protocol

Standard Libraries

GLIBC (GNU C Library)
- General GLIBC Debugging Techniques - http://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/Debugging/Development_Debugging
- GDB pretty-printers for GLIBC
  - http://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/Debugging/Pretty_Printers
- Debugging the Loader - https://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/Debugging/Loader_Debugging
- Backtraces - http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Backtraces.html
- Allocation Debugging - http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Allocation-Debugging.html
libstdc++ Debug Mode: https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/manual/debug_mode.html
- Detecting incorrect C++ STL usage (libstdc++) - https://kristerw.blogspot.com/2018/03/detecting-incorrect-c-stl-usage.html
libc++
- Debug Mode: https://libcxx.llvm.org/docs/DesignDocs/DebugMode.html
- GDB pretty-printers for libc++
  - https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/blob/main/libcxx/utils/gdb/libcxx/printers.py
  - https://github.com/koutheir/libcxx-pretty-printers
Skipping boring functions in debuggers
- https://maskray.me/blog/2024-12-30-skipping-boring-functions-in-debuggers
Visual C++ Debug Iterator Support: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/standard-library/debug-iterator-support

Readings

Debugging - Ian Lance Taylor - https://airs.com/ian/essays/debug/debug.html
Debugging in the (Very) Large: Ten Years of Implementation and Experience
- Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP) 2009
- Kirk Glerum, Kinshuman Kinshumann, Steve Greenberg, Gabriel Aul, Vince Orgovan, Greg Nichols, David Grant, Gretchen Loihle, Galen Hunt
- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/debugging-in-the-very-large-ten-years-of-implementation-and-experience/
- https://www.sigops.org/sosp/sosp09/papers/glerum-sosp09.pdf
- https://www.sigops.org/sosp/sosp09/slides/glerum-slides-sosp09.pdf
debugging-stories: A collection of debugging stories
- https://github.com/danluu/debugging-stories
- http://danluu.com/teach-debugging/
Delta Debugging
- https://www.st.cs.uni-saarland.de/dd/
- Delta: Heuristically minimizes interesting files
  - https://github.com/dsw/delta
- Yesterday, my program worked. Today, it does not. Why?
  - ESEC 1999
  - Andreas Zeller
  - https://www.st.cs.uni-saarland.de/publications/details/zeller-esec-1999/
- Picireny: Hierarchical Delta Debugging Framework
  - https://github.com/renatahodovan/picireny
- Simplifying and Isolating Failure-Inducing Input
  - IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 28(2) 2002
  - Andreas Zeller, Ralf Hildebrandt
  - https://www.st.cs.uni-saarland.de/publications/details/zeller-tse-2002/
  - https://blog.acolyer.org/2015/11/16/simplifying-and-isolating-failure-inducing-input/
  - Simplifying and Isolating Failure-Inducing Input: A Retrospective on Delta Debugging
    - IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 51(3) 2025
    - Andreas Zeller, Ralf Hildebrandt
    - https://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TSE.2025.3537167
- HDD: Hierarchical Delta Debugging
  - ICSE 2006
  - Ghassan Misherghi, Zhendong Su
  - https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1134307
  - https://blog.acolyer.org/2015/11/17/hierarchical-delta-debugging/
- Generalizing and Criticizing Delta Debugging
  - 2011; John Regehr
  - https://blog.regehr.org/archives/527
- Debugging Inputs
  - International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2020
  - Lukas Kirschner, Ezekiel Soremekun, and Andreas Zeller
  - https://www.dropbox.com/s/ddn3fe55lws1rdr/icse2020-ddmax.pdf
  - https://publications.cispa.saarland/3060/1/camera-ready-submission.pdf
  - https://conf.researchr.org/details/icse-2020/icse-2020-papers/119/Debugging-Inputs
  - ddmax implementations & experimental data: https://tinyurl.com/DebuggingInputs
Devon H. O'Dell
- Building a Debugging Mindset
- Debugging: Psychology, Theory, and Application - https://9vx.org/post/debugging-psychology-theory-and-application/
- The Debugging Mindset - https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3068754
Henrik Warne
- Great Programmers Write Debuggable Code - https://henrikwarne.com/2013/05/05/great-programmers-write-debuggable-code/
- Finding Bugs: Debugger versus Logging - https://henrikwarne.com/2014/01/01/finding-bugs-debugger-versus-logging/
- Learning From Your Bugs - https://henrikwarne.com/2016/04/28/learning-from-your-bugs/
How to Debug - John Regehr - https://blog.regehr.org/archives/199
I tend to prefer debugging with release builds instead of debug builds - Ken Johnson (Skywing) - http://www.nynaeve.net/?p=184
Introduction to Procedural Debugging through Binary Libification
- USENIX WOOT Conference on Offensive Technologies (WOOT) 2024
- Jonathan Brossard
- https://www.usenix.org/conference/woot24/presentation/brossard
- WCC: The Witchcraft Compiler Collection
  - https://github.com/endrazine/wcc
The Inflection Point Hypothesis: A Principled Debugging Approach for Locating the Root Cause of a Failure
- Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP) 2019
- Yongle Zhang, Kirk Rodrigues, Yu Luo, Michael Stumm, Ding Yuan
- https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3359650
- https://blog.acolyer.org/2019/11/08/the-inflection-point-hypothesis/
Unstripping Stripped Binaries
- 2022; Tavis Ormandy
- using STABS to debug stripped code
- http://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/symbols.html
What does debugging a program look like? - Julia Evans - https://jvns.ca/blog/2019/06/23/a-few-debugging-resources/
When debugging a stack overflow, you want to focus on the repeating recursive part - Raymond Chen
- https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20090107-00/?p=19573

Books

Books, Books Reviews

Effective Debugging - https://www.spinellis.gr/debugging/
Four Books on Debugging - https://blog.regehr.org/archives/849
Geoff Wozniak
- On battle scars and debugging - https://wozniak.ca/blog/2018/01/15/1/
- From intuition to methodology in debugging - https://wozniak.ca/blog/2018/02/04/1/
- Formalizing debugging - https://wozniak.ca/blog/2018/03/25/1/
- The puzzling empathy of debugging - https://wozniak.ca/blog/2018/05/07/1/
- Retro debugging - https://wozniak.ca/blog/2019/01/04/1/
The Debugging Book: Tools and Techniques for Automated Software Debugging
- Andreas Zeller
- https://www.debuggingbook.org/
Why Programs Fail: A Guide to Systematic Debugging - http://www.whyprogramsfail.com/

Concurrency

Debug Info for Concurrency in LLVM
- 2023 LLVM Developers' Meeting
- Adrian Prantl
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4fei6Vl7o8
- https://llvm.org/devmtg/2023-10/slides/quicktalks/Prantl-DebugInfoForConcurrency.pdf
Interactive Debugging of Concurrent Programs under Relaxed Memory Models
- CGO 2020
- Aakanksha Verma, Pankaj Kumar Kalita, Awanish Pandey, and Subhajit Roy
- Gambit: GDB Assisted Memory Behavior and Interference Tester
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3368826.3377910
Multiverse Debugging: Non-deterministic Debugging for Non-deterministic Programs
- ECOOP 2019
- Carmen Torres Lopez, Robbert Gurdeep Singh, Stefan Marr, Elisa Gonzalez Boix, Christophe Scholliers
- https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.ECOOP.2019.27
- https://2019.ecoop.org/details/ecoop-2019-papers/9/Multiverse-Debugging-Non-deterministic-Debugging-for-Non-deterministic-Programs

Probe Effect

A probe effect in concurrent programs
- Software: Practice and Experience 16 (3)(1986)
- J. Gait
- https://doi.org/10.1002/spe.4380160304
Debugging Concurrent Programs
- ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR) 21(4) 1989
- C. E. McDowell, D. P. Helmbold
- https://users.soe.ucsc.edu/~dph/mypubs/debugConcProg89.pdf

Implementation

An Efficient and Generic Reversible Debugger using the Virtual Machine based Approach
- Virtual Execution Environments (VEE) 2005
- Toshihiko Koju, Shingo Takada, Norihisa Doi
- https://www.usenix.org/events/vee05/full_papers/p79-koju.pdf
Debin: Predicting Debug Information in Stripped Binaries
- ACM CCS 2018
- Jingxuan He, Pesho Ivanov, Petar Tsankov, Veselin Raychev, Martin Vechev
- https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3243866
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1x_KtS-5Hs
- https://github.com/eth-sri/debin
- https://files.sri.inf.ethz.ch/website/papers/ccs18-debin.pdf
Debuggers for Programming Languages
- 2002 Book Chapter in "The Compiler Design Handbook: Optimizations and Machine Code Generation"
- Sanjeev Kumar Aggarwal, M. Sarath Kumar
- https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781420040579/chapters/10.1201%2F9781420040579-12
Debugging with the natives - Stephen Kell
- part 1 - http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~srk31/blog/2016/02/25/#native-debugging-part-1
- part 2 - http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~srk31/blog/2017/01/30/#native-debugging-part-2
Debugging Native Extensions of Dynamic Languages
- International Conference on Managed Languages & Runtimes (ManLang) 2018
- Jacob Kreindl, Manuel Rigger, Hanspeter Mössenböck
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3237009.3237017
- http://ssw.jku.at/General/Staff/Kreindl/papers/ManLang_2018_SulongDebugging.pdf
Debugging with Intelligence via Probabilistic Inference
- Zhaogui Xu, Shiqing Ma, Xiangyu Zhang, Shuofei Zhu, Baowen Xu
- International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2018
- https://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~sm2283/papers/ICSE18.pdf
- https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/06/19/debugging-with-intelligence-via-probabilistic-inference/
Debugopt: Debugging fully optimized natively compiled programs using multistage instrumentation
- Science of Computer Programming 169 (2019)
- Jie Yin, Gang Tan, Hao Li, Xiaolong Bai, Yu Ping Wang, Shi Min Hu
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167642318303629
- https://oslab.cs.tsinghua.edu.cn/debugopt/debugopt.html
Demystifying Debuggers - Ryan Fleury
- https://www.rfleury.com/p/posts-table-of-contents#demystifying-debuggers-series
- Part 1: A Busy Intersection
  - 2024-12-16
  - https://www.rfleury.com/p/demystifying-debuggers-part-1-a-busy
- Part 2: The Anatomy Of A Running Program
  - 2024-12-22
  - https://www.rfleury.com/p/demystifying-debuggers-part-2-the
- Part 3: Debugger-Kernel Interaction
  - 2024-12-28
  - https://www.rfleury.com/p/demystifying-debuggers-part-3-kernel
Eli Bendersky - http://eli.thegreenplace.net/tag/debuggers
- How debuggers work
  - Part 1 - Basics - http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2011/01/23/how-debuggers-work-part-1
  - Part 2 - Breakpoints - http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2011/01/27/how-debuggers-work-part-2-breakpoints
  - Part 3 - Debugging information - http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2011/02/07/how-debuggers-work-part-3-debugging-information
- An interesting tree serialization algorithm from DWARF - https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2011/09/29/an-interesting-tree-serialization-algorithm-from-dwarf
- The contents of DWARF sections - https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2011/12/26/the-contents-of-dwarf-sections
- Programmatic access to the call stack in C++ - https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2015/programmatic-access-to-the-call-stack-in-c/
Fast, Flexible, Polyglot Instrumentation Support for Debuggers and other Tools
- The Art, Science, and Engineering of Programming, 2018, Vol. 2, Issue 3, Article 14
- Van De Vanter, Michael; Seaton, Chris; Haupt, Michael; Humer, Christian; Würthinger, Thomas
- http://programming-journal.org/2018/2/14/
Framework for Instruction-level Tracing and Analysis of Program Executions
- Virtual Execution Environments (VEE) 2006
- https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/vee06/full_papers/p154-bhansali.pdf
- iDNA: Time Travel Debugging
  - Instruction-level Tracing: Framework & Applications
  - Sanjay Bhansali
  - http://www.cs.wisc.edu/areas/pl/seminar/fall05/Bhansali.ppt
How breakpoints are set - http://majantali.net/2016/10/how-breakpoints-are-set/
How Debuggers Work - Michał Górny
- Getting and Setting x86 Registers, Part 1 - https://www.moritz.systems/blog/how-debuggers-work-getting-and-setting-x86-registers-part-1/
- Getting and Setting x86 Registers, Part 2: XSAVE - https://www.moritz.systems/blog/how-debuggers-work-getting-and-setting-x86-registers-part-2/
How do debuggers keep track of the threads in your program?
- https://web.archive.org/http://timetobleed.com/how-do-debuggers-keep-track-of-the-threads-in-your-program/
How to code debuggers - Tomasz Wegrzanowski - https://t-a-w.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-to-code-debuggers.html
Making a low level (Linux) debugger
- part 1: assembly - https://web.archive.org/https://blog.asrpo.com/making_a_low_level_debugger
- part 2: C - https://web.archive.org/https://blog.asrpo.com/making_a_low_level_debugger_part_2
- part 3: our first program - https://web.archive.org/https://blog.asrpo.com/making_a_low_level_debugger_part_3
Making an AMDGPU debugger
- Marcell Kiss
- part I - The Plan: https://martty.github.io/posts/radbg_part_1/
- part II - The Devk: https://martty.github.io/posts/radbg_part_2/
- part III - Trap handler: https://martty.github.io/posts/radbg_part_3/
- part IV - Grand finale: https://martty.github.io/posts/radbg_part_4/
On-Stack Replacement, Distilled
- Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI) 2018
- Daniele Cono D'Elia and Camil Demetrescu
- https://pldi18.sigplan.org/event/pldi-2018-papers-on-stack-replacement-distilled
- http://season-lab.github.io/papers/osr-distilled-pldi18.pdf
- https://github.com/dcdelia/tinyvm
- "As a novel application of OSR, we present a feasibility study on debugging of optimized code, showing how our techniques can be used to fix variables holding incorrect values at breakpoints due to optimizations."
Samy Al Bahra, Backtrace
- Compiler debug quality suite - https://github.com/backtrace-labs/cdqs
- Compile Once Debug Twice: Picking a Compiler for Debuggability
  - https://engineering.backtrace.io/compile-once-debug-twice/
- Debugging the Debugger: Why Your Debugger Doesn’t Work When You Need it To
  - BSDCan 2017; Samy Al Bahra
  - https://www.bsdcan.org/2017/schedule/events/787.en.html
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyF-hGGPJMs
- Implementing a Debugger - Backtrace
  - The Fundamentals - https://engineering.backtrace.io/2016-08-11-debugger-internals/
  - Building a Go Debugger - https://engineering.backtrace.io/2016-11-23-building-a-go-debugger/
Writing a basic Windows debugger - https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/43682/Writing-a-basic-Windows-debugger
Writing a Debugger - Joseph Kain - http://system.joekain.com/debugger/
Writing a Debugger From Scratch - DbgRs - Tim Misiak
- DbgRs: A Windows debugger written in Rust, for educational purposes
  - https://github.com/TimMisiak/dbgrs
- Part 1 - Attaching to a Process
  - https://www.timdbg.com/posts/writing-a-debugger-from-scratch-part-1/
- Part 2 - Register State and Stepping
  - https://www.timdbg.com/posts/writing-a-debugger-from-scratch-part-2/
- Part 3 - Reading Memory
  - https://www.timdbg.com/posts/writing-a-debugger-from-scratch-part-3/
- Part 4 - Exports and Private Symbols
  - https://www.timdbg.com/posts/writing-a-debugger-from-scratch-part-4/
- Part 5 - Breakpoints
  - https://www.timdbg.com/posts/writing-a-debugger-from-scratch-part-5/
- Part 6 - Stacks
  - https://www.timdbg.com/posts/writing-a-debugger-from-scratch-part-6/
- Part 7 - Disassembly
  - https://www.timdbg.com/posts/writing-a-debugger-from-scratch-part-7/
- Part 8 - Source and Symbols
  - https://www.timdbg.com/posts/writing-a-debugger-from-scratch-part-8/
Writing a Linux Debugger - Simon Brand
- 1. Setup - https://blog.tartanllama.xyz/writing-a-linux-debugger-setup/
- 2. Breakpoints - https://blog.tartanllama.xyz/writing-a-linux-debugger-breakpoints/
- 3. Registers and memory - https://blog.tartanllama.xyz/writing-a-linux-debugger-registers/
- 4. Elves and dwarves - https://blog.tartanllama.xyz/writing-a-linux-debugger-elf-dwarf/
- 5. Source and signals - https://blog.tartanllama.xyz/writing-a-linux-debugger-source-signal/
- 6. Source-level stepping - https://blog.tartanllama.xyz/writing-a-linux-debugger-dwarf-step/
- 7. Source-level breakpoints - https://blog.tartanllama.xyz/writing-a-linux-debugger-source-break/
- 8. Stack unwinding - https://blog.tartanllama.xyz/writing-a-linux-debugger-unwinding/
- 9. Handling variables - https://blog.tartanllama.xyz/writing-a-linux-debugger-variables/
- 10. Advanced topics - https://blog.tartanllama.xyz/writing-a-linux-debugger-advanced-topics/
- minidbg: A mini x86 linux debugger for teaching purposes - https://github.com/TartanLlama/minidbg
(Windows) Data Breakpoints - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/reiley/2011/07/21/data-breakpoints/
(Windows) Side Effects of Debugger - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/reiley/2011/08/27/side-effects-of-debugger/

Implementation: 2026

Towards Threading the Needle of Debuggable Optimized Binaries
- International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization (CGO) 2026
- Cristian Assaiante, Simone Di Biasio, Snehasish Kumar, Giuseppe Antonio Di Luna, Daniele Cono D’Elia, Leonardo Querzoni
- https://snehasish.net/assets/pdf/assaiante-cgo26.pdf
- Constructing Debug-Friendly Optimization Pipelines from Individual Pass Evaluation
  - https://discourse.llvm.org/t/constructing-debug-friendly-optimization-pipelines-from-individual-pass-evaluation/89189
- DebugTuner: A framework for testing the impact of individual optimization passes on debug information availability
  - guides the construction of more debug-friendly optimization pipelines with minimal performance overhead
  - https://github.com/Sap4Sec/debugtuner

Implementation: 2025

Implementation of the Debugging Support for the LLVM Outlining Optimization
- Sinteza 2025: International Scientific Conference on Information Technology, Computer Science, and Data Science
- Vojislav Tomašević, Đorđe Todorović, Maja Vukasović
- https://doi.org/10.15308/sinteza-2025-233-240
- https://portal.sinteza.singidunum.ac.rs/Media/files/2025/233-240.pdf
Writing a Windows ARM64 Debugger for Reverse Engineering: KoiDbg
- 2025-05-03
- João Vitor
- https://keowu.re/posts/Writing-a-Windows-ARM64-Debugger-for-Reverse-Engineering-KoiDbg/
- KoiDbg: Windows ARM64 Debugger for Reverse Engineering
  - https://github.com/keowu/koidbg

Implementation: 2023

D2X: An eXtensible conteXtual Debugger for Modern DSLs
- CGO 2023
- Ajay Brahmakshatriya, Saman Amarasinghe
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3579990.3580014
- http://groups.csail.mit.edu/commit/papers/2023/ajay-cgo23-d2x.pdf
- https://zenodo.org/record/7459640

Correctness

A data-driven approach to debug info quality
- 2024 LLVM Developers' Meeting
- Emil Pedersen
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zluvVkxK6oY
- https://llvm.org/devmtg/2024-10/slides/studenttalks/Pedersen-DataDrivenApproachToDebugInfoQuality.pdf
Accurate Coverage Metrics for Compiler-Generated Debugging Information
- ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Compiler Construction (CC) 2024
- J. Ryan Stinnett, Stephen Kell
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.04811
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3640537.3641578
- EuroLLVM 2024
Automatic Generation of Debug Headers through BlackBox Equivalence Checking
- International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization (CGO) 2022
- Vaibhav Kiran Kurhe, Pratik Karia, Shubhani Gupta, Abhishek Rose, Sorav Bansal
- https://doi.org/10.1109/CGO53902.2022.9741273
- https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5788478
- https://sorav.compiler.ai/pubs/debugheaders.pdf
Compilation Consistency Modulo Debug Information
- ASPLOS 2023
- Theodore Luo Wang, Yongqiang Tian, Yiwen Dong, Zhenyang Xu, Chengnian Sun
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3575693.3575740
- https://chengniansun.bitbucket.io/public/publication/asplos23/
- https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7217505
Debugging Debug Information with Neural Networks
- IEEE Access (2022)
- Fiorella Artuso, Giuseppe Antonio Di Luna, Leonardo Querzoni
- https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9779237
Debug Information Validation for Optimized Code
- PLDI 2020
- Yuanbo Li, Shuo Ding, Qirun Zhang, Davide Italiano
- https://helloqirun.github.io/papers/pldi20_yuanbo1.pdf
- https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~qrzhang/projects/debug/debug.html
- https://pldi20.sigplan.org/details/pldi-2020-papers/60/Debug-Information-Validation-for-Optimized-Code
- Debugging Information Testing
  - A Python reimplementation for the debug-information testing framework for the paper
  - https://github.com/yuanboli233/debug-info-testing
DTD: Comprehensive and Scalable Testing for Debuggers
- ACM International Conference on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE) 2024
- Hongyi Lu, Zhibo Liu, Shuai Wang, Fengwei Zhang
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3643779
- https://jwnhy.github.io/papers/dtd-fse24.pdf
- https://github.com/jwnhy/DTD
GCC gOlogy: studying the impact of optimizations on debugging
- 2018; Alexandre Oliva
- https://www.fsfla.org/~lxoliva/writeups/gOlogy/gOlogy.txt
- GNU Tools Cauldron 2018 slides: https://www.fsfla.org/~lxoliva/writeups/gOlogy/slides.pdf
Improving debug locations for variables in memory in optimized code
- 2022 EuroLLVM Developers' Meeting
- Orlando Cazalet-Hyams
- https://www.snsystems.com/technology/tech-blog/improving-debug-locations-for-variables-in-memory
- https://llvm.org/devmtg/2022-05/slides/2022EuroLLVM-ImprovingDebugLocations-for-Variables-in-Memory.pdf
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSmveKsWSSY
Improving debug variable location coverage by using even more SSA
- 2021 LLVM Developers' Meeting
- Jeremy Morse
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxuwfNnp064
- https://llvm.org/devmtg/2021-11/slides/2021-ImprovingDebugVariableLocations.pdf
- https://www.snsystems.com/technology/tech-blog/improving-debug-variable-location-coverage-by-using-even-more-ssa
Improving optimized code line table quality
- 2024 LLVM Developers' Meeting
- Orlando Cazalet-Hyams
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj1EUzXVP1I
- https://llvm.org/devmtg/2024-10/slides/techtalk/Cazalet-Hyams-Improving-optimized-code-line-table-quality.pdf
- https://discourse.llvm.org/t/rfc-proposed-update-to-handling-debug-locations-in-llvm/79244
- https://discourse.llvm.org/t/rfc-improving-is-stmt-placement-for-better-interactive-debugging/82668
LLVM and debug information quality
- Triplefault 2020; Djordje Todorovic
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpMLt1oecOk
Possible issues with debugging and inspecting compiler-optimized binaries
- 2020; William Cohen
- https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2020/03/13/possible-issues-with-debugging-and-inspecting-compiler-optimized-binaries/
Robustifying Debug Information Updates in LLVM via Control-Flow Conformance Analysis
- 2025 ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI)
- Shan Huang, Jingjing Liang, Ting Su, Qirun Zhang
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3729267
- https://github.com/ecnusse/MetaLoc
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_Kkaa4wJCo
Save Our Source-Locations
- Or: Introspecting LLVM to fix bugs to improve debug info and SPGO outcomes
- 2025 US LLVM Developers' Meeting
- Stephen Livermore-Tozer
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJMToFlxqog
- https://llvm.org/devmtg/2025-10/slides/quick_talks/livermore-tozer.pdf
Secure Delivery of Program Properties Through Optimizing Compilation
- ACM International Conference on Compiler Construction (CC) 2020
- Son Tuan Vu, Karine Heydemann, Arnaud de Grandmaison, Albert Cohen
- https://research.google/pubs/pub48841/
- "We propose an approach to encode, translate, and preserve the semantics of both functional and non-functional properties along the optimizing compilation of C to machine code. The approach involves (1) capturing and translating source-level properties through lowering passes and intermediate representations, such that data and control flow optimizations will preserve their consistency with the transformed program, and (2) carrying properties and their translation as debug information down to machine code."
- "A fortunate side-effect of inserting artificial definitions is to prevent most optimization passes from harming the observed variables’ debug information."
Source-Level Debugging of Compiler-Optimised Code: Ill-Posed, but Not Impossible
- 2024 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software (Onward!)
- Stephen Kell and J. Ryan Stinnett
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3689492.3690047
- https://convolv.es/papers/2024/Onward!/debug-info-vision.pdf
Testing Debug Info of Optimised Programs
- KLEE Workshop 2022
- J. Ryan Stinnett, Stephen Kell
- https://srg.doc.ic.ac.uk/klee22/talks/Stinnett-Testing-Debug-Info.pdf
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIYPYP06fY0
- https://convolv.es/talks/testing-debug-info/
- https://github.com/jryans/debug-info-issues
Where Did My Variable Go? Poking Holes in Incomplete Debug Information
- ASPLOS 2023
- Cristian Assaiante, Daniele Cono D'Elia, Giuseppe Antonio Di Luna, Leonardo Querzoni
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.09568
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3575693.3575720
- https://github.com/cristianassaiante/incomplete-debuginfo
Who is Debugging the Debuggers? Exposing Debug Information Bugs in Optimized Binaries
- ASPLOS 2021
- Giuseppe Antonio Di Luna, Davide Italiano, Luca Massarelli, Sebastian Osterlund, Cristiano Giuffrida, Leonardo Querzoni
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.13994

Correctness: 2000-2009

A Fully-Non-transparent Solution to the Code Location Problem
- International Workshop on Software and Compilers for Embedded Systems (SCOPES) 2008
- Hugo Venturini
- https://doi.org/10.1145/1361096.1361108
- https://scopesconf.org/scopes-08/presentations/13_slides.pdf
A Practical, Robust Method for Generating Variable Range Tables
- CC 2001: Compiler Construction
- Caroline Tice, Susan L. Graham
- https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/3-540-45306-7_8
- https://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/tech_reports/SRC-RR-165.pdf
Key Instructions: Solving the Code Location Problem for Optimized Code
- 2000 Compaq Systems Research Center Research Report 164
- Caroline Tice, Susan L. Graham
- https://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/Compaq-DEC/SRC-RR-164.html
- https://web.archive.org/http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/Compaq-DEC/SRC-RR-164.pdf
- Key Instructions debug info in LLVM and Clang
  - https://llvm.org/docs/KeyInstructionsDebugInfo.html
  - [RFC] Improving is_stmt placement for better interactive debugging
    - 2024; Orlando Cazalet-Hyams
    - https://discourse.llvm.org/t/rfc-improving-is-stmt-placement-for-better-interactive-debugging/82668
Proving the Correctness of Algorithmic Debugging for Functional Programs
- Trends in Functional Programming (TFP) 2006
- Olaf Chitil, Yong Luo
- https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/pubs/2007/2863/content.pdf

Correctness: 1990-1999

A New Approach to Debugging Optimized Code
- PLDI 1992
- Gary Brooks, Gilbert J. Hansen, Steve Simmons
- https://doi.org/10.1145/143095.143108
An Annotated Bibliography on Debugging Optimized Code
- Digital Technical Journal, Volume 10, Number 1, 1998
- Ronald F. Brender
- http://web.archive.org/web/20050329205642/http://research.compaq.com:80/wrl/DECarchives/DTJ/DTJT07/DTJT07BIHM.HTM
Correctness Proofs of Compilers and Debuggers: an Approach Based on Structural Operational Semantics
- 1992 Ph.D. dissertation; Fabio Q. B. da Silva
- http://hdl.handle.net/1842/13542
- http://www.lfcs.inf.ed.ac.uk/reports/92/ECS-LFCS-92-241/
Debugging Optimized Code with Dynamic Deoptimization
- PLDI 1992
- Urs Hölzle, Craig Chambers, David Ungar
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/143103.143114
- https://bibliography.selflanguage.org/dynamic-deoptimization.html
Debugging Optimized Code Without Being Misled
- ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS) 16(3) 1994
- Max Copperman
- https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~fateman/264/papers/copperman.pdf
Debugging Optimized Code: Concepts and Implementation on DIGITAL Alpha Systems
- Digital Technical Journal, Volume 10, Number 1, 1998
- Ronald F. Brender, Jeffrey E. Nelson, Mark E. Arsenault
- https://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/dtj/vol10num1/vol10num1art7.pdf
Formally Defining Debuggers: A Comparison of Three Approaches
- International Workshop on Automated Debugging (AADEBUG) 1995
- Karen L. Bernstein, Eugene W. Stark
- http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.36.2511
Non-Transparent Debugging of Optimized Code
- 1999 Ph.D. dissertation; Caroline Mae Tice
- https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1999/6232.html
Operational Semantics of a Focusing Debugger
- Electronic Notesin Theoretical Computer Science 1 (1995)
- Karen L. Bernstein, Eugene W.Stark
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1571-0661(04)80002-1
OPTVIEW: A New Approach for Examining Optimized Code
- ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Program Analysis for Software Tools and Engineering (PASTE) 1998
- Caroline Tice and Susan L. Graham
- https://doi.org/10.1145/277631.277636
Source-Level Debugging of Scalar Optimized Code
- PLDI 1996
- Ali-Reza Adl-Tabatabai, Thomas Gross
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/249069.231388

Testing

Comparing The Quality Of Debug Information Produced By Clang And GCC
- https://robert.ocallahan.org/2018/11/comparing-quality-of-debug-information.html
- debuginfo-quality: Evaluate the quality of debuginfo in an ELF binary
  - https://github.com/rocallahan/debuginfo-quality
Continuous integration with GDB Buildbot
- https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2020/02/17/continuous-integration-with-gdb-buildbot/
Debug Frame Checking: Check .eh_frame and .debug_frame information
- https://github.com/francesco-zappa-nardelli/eh_frame_check
DExTer (Debugging Experience Tester)
- https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/tree/main/cross-project-tests/debuginfo-tests/dexter
- https://github.com/SNSystems/dexter
- Measuring the User Debugging Experience
  - 2018 European LLVM Developers Meeting; Greg Bedwell
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRT_GmpGjXE
  - https://llvm.org/devmtg/2018-04/slides/Bedwell-Measuring_the_User_Debugging_Experience.pdf
  - https://llvm.org/devmtg/2018-04/slides/Bedwell-Measuring_the_User_Debugging_Experience_poster.png
  - https://www.snsystems.com/technology/tech-blog/measuring-the-user-debug-experience
Feedback-Directed Differential Testing of Interactive Debuggers
- ESEC/FSE 2018
- Daniel Lehmann, Michael Pradel
- http://software-lab.org/publications/fse2018.pdf
- https://github.com/sola-da/DifferentialDebuggerTesting
Interactive Metamorphic Testing of Debuggers
- ISSTA 2019
- Sandro Tolksdorf, Daniel Lehmann, Michael Pradel
- https://conf.researchr.org/event/issta-2019/issta-2019-technical-papers-interactive-metamorphic-testing-of-debuggers
llvm-debuginfo-analyzer: Print a logical representation of low-level debug information
- llvm-debuginfo-analyzer parses debug and text sections in binary object files and prints their contents in a logical view, which is a human readable representation that closely matches the structure of the original user source code. Supported object file formats include ELF, Mach-O, PDB and COFF.
- https://llvm.org/docs/CommandGuide/llvm-debuginfo-analyzer.html
- https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/tree/main/llvm/tools/llvm-debuginfo-analyzer
- https://github.com/SNSystems/llvm-debuginfo-analyzer
- (original tool, not maintained) DIVA - Debug Information Visual Analyzer
  - DIVA is a command line tool that processes DWARF debug information contained within ELF files and prints the semantics of that debug information. The DIVA output is designed to be understandable by software programmers without any low-level compiler or DWARF knowledge; as such, it can be used to report debug information bugs to the compiler provider.
  - https://github.com/SNSystems/DIVA
  - 2017 EuroLLVM Developers’ Meeting lightning talk
    - video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwtpXaCk2bE
    - slides: http://llvm.org/devmtg/2017-03/assets/slides/diva_debug_information_visual_analyzer.pdf
lldb-eval fuzzer: Finding bugs in an LLDB-based expression evaluator
- 2021 LLVM Developers' Meeting; Tonko Sabolčec
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ9k7-pmwvM
- https://llvm.org/devmtg/2021-11/slides/2021-LLDB-eval-fuzzer-Finding-Bugs-In-LLDB-based-expression-evaluator.pdf
lldb-repro: a utility to transparently capture and replay debugger sessions through the command line driver
- used to test the reproducers by running the test suite twice
- https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/tree/main/lldb/utils/lldb-repro
- An Introduction to LLDB Reproducers
  - https://pspdfkit.com/blog/2020/an-introduction-to-lldb-reproducers/
Samy Al Bahra, Backtrace
- Compiler debug quality suite - https://github.com/backtrace-labs/cdqs

Reverse Debugging

A Review of Reverse Debugging
- System, Software, SoC and Silicon Debug Conference (S4D) 2012
- Jakob Engblom
- https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6338149/
- http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.338.3420&rep=rep1&type=pdf
A Taxonomy of Execution Replay Systems
- 2003 International Conference on Advances in Infrastructure for Electronic Business, Education, Science, Medicine, and Mobile Technologies on the Internet
- Frank Cornelis, Andy Georges, Mark Christiaens, Michiel Ronsse, Tom Ghesquiere, Koen De Bosschere
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/244149898_A_Taxonomy_of_Execution_Replay_Systems
An Interactive Debugging Approach Based on Time-traveling Queries
- 2023 PhD Dissertation
- Maximilian Ignacio Willembrinck Santander
- https://theses.hal.science/tel-04512544
- https://github.com/Willembrinck/2023-Selective-Time-Traveling-Thesis
Deterministic Replay: A Survey
- ACM Computing Surveys 48(2) 2015
- Yunji Chen, Shijin Zhang, Qi Guo, Ling Li, Ruiyang Wu, Tianshi Chen
- https://doi.org/10.1145/2790077
Don’t Panic: Reverse Debugging of Kernel Drivers
- Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE) 2015
- Pavel Dovgalyuk, Denis Dmitriev, Vladimir Makarov
- https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2786805.2803179
- Review (Jakob Engblom): Reverse Debug with Hardware in the Loop - http://jakob.engbloms.se/archives/2432
Efficient Algorithms for Bidirectional Debugging
- Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI) 2000
- B. Boothe
- https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=349339
Expositor: Scriptable Time-Travel Debugging with First Class Traces
- International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2013
- Yit Phang Khoo, Jeffrey S. Foster, Michael Hicks
- http://www.cs.umd.edu/~mwh/papers/khoo13expositor.html
- full version - http://www.cs.umd.edu/~mwh/papers/khoo13expositor-journal.html
Implementation of Live Reverse Debugging in LLDB
- 2021
- Anthony Savidis, Vangelis Tsiatsianas
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.12819
- https://github.com/vangelists/llvm-project/wiki/Reverse-Debugging
Improving the performance of reverse debugging
- Programming and Computer Software 43(1) 2017
- Klimushenkova, M.A. & Dovgalyuk, P.M.
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S0361768817010042
MIO: Multiverse Debugging in the Face of Input/Output
- OOPSLA 2025
- Tom Lauwaerts, Maarten Steevens, Christophe Scholliers
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3763136
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGa4hMJ6lac
- Extended Version with Additional Appendices
  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06845
- MIO Debugger: A multiverse debugger for WARDuino
  - https://github.com/TOPLLab/MIO
POMP: Postmortem Program Analysis with Hardware-Enhanced Post-Crash Artifacts
- USENIX Security 2017
- Jun Xu, Dongliang Mu, Xinyu Xing, Peng Liu, Ping Chen, Bing Mao
- https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity17/technical-sessions/presentation/xu-jun
- https://github.com/junxzm1990/pomp
Processor-Oblivious Record and Replay
- Robert Utterback, Kunal Agrawal, I-Ting Angelina Lee, Milind Kulkarni
- ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles and Practice of Parallel Programming (PPoPP) 2017
  - https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3018743.3018764
- ACM Transactions on Parallel Computing (TOPC) 6(4) 2019
  - https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3365659
- PORRidge: Processor Obvivious Record and Replay
  - A runtime system to deterministically record lock acquires and replay them on an arbitrary number of cores
  - https://github.com/wustl-pctg/PORRidge
REPT: Reverse Debugging of Failures in Deployed Software
- USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI) 2018
- Weidong Cui, Xinyang Ge, Baris Kasikci, Ben Niu, Upamanyu Sharma, Ruoyu Wang, Insu Yun
- https://www.usenix.org/conference/osdi18/presentation/weidong
- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/rept-reverse-debugging-of-failures-in-deployed-software/
Reverse Debugging of Kernel Failures in Deployed Systems
- USENIX Annual Technical Conference (ATC) 2020
- Xinyang Ge, Ben Niu, Weidong Cui
- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/reverse-debugging-of-kernel-failures-in-deployed-systems/
Reverse History
- Part One – Background - http://jakob.engbloms.se/archives/1547
- Part Two – Research - http://jakob.engbloms.se/archives/1554
- Part Three – Products - http://jakob.engbloms.se/archives/1564
Transition Watchpoints: Teaching Old Debuggers New Tricks
- The Art, Science, and Engineering of Programming, 2017, Vol. 1, Issue 2, Article 16
- Kapil Arya, Tyler Denniston, Ariel Rabkin, Gene Cooperman
- http://programming-journal.org/2017/1/16/

Reverse Debugging: Talks

How do Time Travel Debuggers Work? - Design and Implementation of a Time Travel Debugger

Software Engineering

A Survey on Software Fault Localization
- IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 42(8) (2016)
- W. Eric Wong, Ruizhi Gao, Yihao Li, Rui Abreu, Franz Wotawa
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291951202_A_Survey_on_Software_Fault_Localization
Are Automated Debugging Techniques Actually Helping Programmers?
- International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA) 2011
- Chris Parnin, Alessandro Orso
- https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2001445
- ISSTA 2021 Impact Paper Award Talk
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6os29gTA3I
Automated Debugging: Are We There Yet?
- International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (ICSTW) 2011
- Alex Orso
- http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5954471/
- 2013 talk
Debugging Reinvented: Asking and Answering Why and Why Not Questions about Program Behavior
- International Conference on Software Engineering ICSE 2008
- Andrew J. Ko, Brad A. Myers
  - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.159.1425
  - https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1368130
- Microsoft Research Talk:
- "Static and dynamic program slicing algorithms for extracting and answering developers questions about program output that substantially decrease fault localization time."
- https://blog.acolyer.org/2014/10/17/debugging-reinvented/
On The Dichotomy of Debugging Behavior Among Programmers
- ICSE 2018
- Moritz Beller, Niels Spruit, Diomidis Spinellis, Andy Zaidman
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3180155.3180175
- https://inventitech.com/assets/publications/2018_beller_spruit_spinellis_zaidman_on_the_dichotomy_of_debugging_behavior_among_programmers.pdf
Where Is the Bug and How Is It Fixed? An Experiment with Practitioners
- European Software Engineering Conference / Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE) 2017
- Marcel Böhme, Ezekiel O. Soremekun, Sudipta Chattopadhyay, Emamurho Ugherughe, Andreas Zeller
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3106237.3106255
- https://mboehme.github.io/paper/FSE17.pdf
- DBGBench
  - https://dbgbench.github.io/
  - "the correct fault locations, bug diagnoses, and software patches of 27 real errors in open-source C projects that were consolidated from hundreds of debugging sessions of professional software engineers"

Transparency

Ninja: Towards Transparent Tracing and Debugging on ARM
- USENIX Security 2017
- Zhenyu Ning, Fengwei Zhang
- https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity17/technical-sessions/presentation/ning
Towards Transparent Debugging
- IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC) 2016
- Fengwei Zhang, Kevin Leach, Angelos Stavrou, and Haining Wang
- https://doi.org/10.1109/TDSC.2016.2545671
- https://compass.sustech.edu.cn/paper/malt-tdsc18.pdf
Using Hardware Features for Increased Debugging Transparency
- 36th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P) 2015
- Fengwei Zhang, Kevin Leach, Angelos Stavrou, Haining Wang, and Kun Sun
- https://doi.org/10.1109/SP.2015.11
- https://compass.sustech.edu.cn/paper/malt-sp15.pdf

Software

Blinkenlights: a command line debugger that focuses on visualizing how software changes memory
- able to emulate statically linked i8086 and x86_64-pc-linux-gnu programs on the Linux, Mac, Windows, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD platforms
- https://justine.lol/blinkenlights/
dbg: A macro for printf-style debugging fans
- https://github.com/sharkdp/dbg-macro
Debug Break: break into the debugger programmatically
- debugbreak.h allows you to put breakpoints in your C/C++ code with a call to debug_break()
- Supports GCC, Clang and MSVC.
- Works well on ARM, AArch64, i686, x86-64, POWER and has a fallback code path for other architectures.
- https://github.com/scottt/debugbreak
IDD: A System for Differential Debugging
- https://github.com/compiler-research/idd
- Debugging Regressions: Interactive Differential Debugging
  - 2025 EuroLLVM Developers' Meeting
  - Vipul Cariappa, Martin Vassilev
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI-jxB0tGpM
  - https://llvm.org/devmtg/2025-04/slides/technical_talk/cariappa_Debugging.pdf
ppstep: Interactive C/C++ preprocessor macro debugger
- https://github.com/notfoundry/ppstep
QIRA: QEMU Interactive Runtime Analyser
- http://qira.me/
- https://github.com/BinaryAnalysisPlatform/qira/
Radare2: Libre Reversing Framework for Unix Geeks
- Radare project started as a forensics tool, a scriptable commandline hexadecimal editor able to open disk files, but later support for analyzing binaries, disassembling code, debugging programs, attaching to remote gdb servers, etc.
- http://www.radare.org/
- https://github.com/radare/radare2
ret-sync: Reverse-Engineering Tools SYNChronization
- A set of plugins to synchronize a debugging session (WinDbg/GDB/LLDB/OllyDbg/OllyDbg2/x64dbg) with IDA/Ghidra disassemblers.
- https://github.com/bootleg/ret-sync
Vivisect / Vdb / Vtrace
- Vivisect: interactive disassembler
- Vtrace: a cross-platform & cross-architecture debugging API
- VDB: a cross-platform & cross-architecture debugger using Vtrace
- https://github.com/vivisect/vivisect
- documentation: http://fitblip.pub/vdb-fork/sphinx/
- fork & documentation: http://fitblip.pub/vdb-fork/
- Using a Custom VDB Debugger for Exploit Analysis
  - https://web.archive.org/web/20210921035401/https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2013/02/custom-vdb-debugger-exploit-analysis.html
- Malware Analysis with Vivisect
  - Colin Williams; NEST
  - https://web.archive.org/http://nest.unm.edu/files/5514/1254/9114/Malware_Analysis_with_Vivsect.pdf
- Binary Vivisection
- FireEye Labs Query-Oriented Debugger
  - Command-line and Python debugger for instrumenting and modifying native software behavior on Windows and Linux
  - https://github.com/fireeye/flare-qdb
  - Querying Dynamic State using the FireEye Labs Query-Oriented Debugger (flare-qdb)
    - https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2017/01/flare_script_series.html
Voltron: A hacky debugger UI for hackers
- "Voltron is an extensible debugger UI toolkit written in Python. It aims to improve the user experience of various debuggers (LLDB, GDB, VDB and WinDbg) by enabling the attachment of utility views that can retrieve and display data from the debugger host. By running these views in other TTYs, you can build a customised debugger user interface to suit your needs."
- https://github.com/snare/voltron

Software: Editor Integration

nvim-dap: Debug Adapter Protocol client implementation for Neovim
- https://github.com/mfussenegger/nvim-dap
vimspector: A multi-language debugging system for Vim
- https://github.com/puremourning/vimspector

Software: Virtual Machine Introspection

LibVMI: Simplified Virtual Machine Introspection
- "LibVMI is a virtual machine introspection library. This means that it helps you access the memory of a running virtual machine. LibVMI provides primitives for accessing this memory using physical or virtual addresses and kernel symbols. LibVMI also supports accessing memory from a physical memory snapshot, which is helpful for debugging or forensic analysis."
- https://github.com/libvmi/libvmi
PulseDbg: Hypervisor-based debugger
- https://github.com/honorarybot/PulseDBG
PyREBox: a Python scriptable Reverse Engineering sandbox
- "It is based on QEMU, and its goal is to aid reverse engineering by providing dynamic analysis and debugging capabilities from a different perspective. PyREBox allows to inspect a running QEMU VM, modify its memory or registers, and to instrument its execution, by creating simple scripts in python to automate any kind of analysis. QEMU (when working as a whole-system-emulator) emulates a complete system (CPU, memory, devices...). By using VMI techniques, it does not require to perform any modification into the guest operating system, as it transparently retrieves information from its memory at run-time."
- https://github.com/Cisco-Talos/pyrebox
- http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2017/07/pyrebox.html
pyvmidbg: LibVMI-based debug server, implemented in Python
- Building a guest aware, stealth and agentless full-system debugger
- https://github.com/Wenzel/pyvmidbg
- Building a Flexible Hypervisor-Level Debugger
  - Insomni'hack 2019; Mathieu Tarral
  - https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZMUszfwWDOljdDfPOJgkEfSabNy0UAJR
r2vmi: Hypervisor-Level Debugger based on Radare2 / LibVMI, using VMI IO and debug plugins
- https://github.com/Wenzel/r2vmi
- Hack.lu 2018: Hypervisor-Level Debugger: Benefits And Challenges - Mathieu Tarral
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnWYT-kCx_s
- r2con2018 - Hypervisor Level Debugger with r2 - Mathieu Tarral
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOJMgWa7E6A
  - https://github.com/radareorg/r2con2018/tree/master/talks/10-hypervisor-level-debugger
rVMI: A New Paradigm For Full System Analysis
- "rVMI is a debugger on steroids. It leverages Virtual Machine Introspection (VMI) and memory forensics to provide full system analysis. This means that an analyst can inspect userspace processes, kernel drivers, and preboot environments in a single tool."
- https://github.com/fireeye/rVMI
- https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2017/09/rvmi-full-system-analysis.html
- Black Hat USA 2017
  - https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-17/thursday/us-17-Pfoh-rVMI-A-New-Paradigm-For-Full-System-Analysis.pdf
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEVevKVLs3s
xendbg: A modern Xen debugger
- "xendbg is a feature-complete reference implementation of a modern Xen VMI debugger, superseding Xen's own limited and rarely-maintained gdbsx. It can debug both paravirtualized (PV) and hardware virtualized (HVM) guests, and provides both a standalone REPL and an LLDB server mode."
- https://github.com/nccgroup/xendbg
- Xendbg: A Full-Featured Debugger for the Xen Hypervisor
  - https://www.nccgroup.trust/us/about-us/newsroom-and-events/blog/2019/january/xendbg-a-full-featured-debugger-for-the-xen-hypervisor/
Virtual Machine Introspection: Modular and extensible library for Virtual Machine Introspection
- https://github.com/vmi-rs/vmi

GDB

GDB: The GNU Project Debugger
GDB - The Architecture of Open Source Applications - Stan Shebs
- http://aosabook.org/en/gdb.html

GDB: Projects

asm2cfg: GDB extension to add commands to view and save disassembled functions as a dot control-flow graphs
- https://github.com/Kazhuu/asm2cfg
CGDB: Console front-end to the GNU debugger
- https://github.com/cgdb/cgdb
Gdb Assembly Informant
- steps through your assembly code one instruction at a time and diffs register values
- https://github.com/thlorenz/gai
GDB dashboard
- https://github.com/cyrus-and/gdb-dashboard
- https://metricpanda.com/tips-for-productive-debugging-with-gdb
GDB helper scripts
- https://github.com/tromey/gdb-helpers
gdb-command: Library for manipulating gdb in batch mode
- Rust
- Execution of target program (Local type)
- Opening core of target program (Core type)
- Attaching to remote process (Remote type)
- https://github.com/anfedotoff/gdb-command
gdb-gui: A gdb gui written in Python, running inside gdb itself
- https://github.com/tromey/gdb-gui
gdb-helpers: GDB helper scripts
- https://github.com/tromey/gdb-helpers
gdb-tools: Various tools to improve the gdb experience
- https://github.com/vuvova/gdb-tools
- gdb tools: duel and @PrettyPrinter - https://fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/debugging_tools_gdb_tools/
gdb-walkers: Bring mdb walkers to gdb, also add other helpful commands.
- https://github.com/hardenedapple/gdb-walkers
- GDB pipelines -- convenience iteration over inferior data structures
  - Bringing MDB's "walkers" to GDB
  - FOSDEM 2020; Matthew Malcomson
  - https://fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/debugging_gdb_pipelines/
GDBFrontend
- "an easy, flexible and extensionable gui debugger"
- https://github.com/rohanrhu/gdb-frontend
gdbgui: A browser-based frontend for GDB
- https://gdbgui.com/
- https://github.com/cs01/gdbgui
GdbShellPipe: Enable piping of internal command output to external commands
- https://github.com/hq6/GdbShellPipe
GDBundle: Plugin Manager for GDB and LLDB
- https://github.com/memfault/gdbundle
- gdbundle - GDB and LLDB's Missing Plugin Manager
  - https://interrupt.memfault.com/blog/gdbundle-plugin-manager
Gede: a graphical frontend (GUI) to GDB written in Qt
- http://gede.acidron.com/
- mirror: https://github.com/Nanoseb/gede
GEF (GDB Enhanced Features)
- https://github.com/hugsy/gef
- https://github.com/hugsy/gef-scripts
- https://github.com/hugsy/gef-structs
- GEF Tutorials - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjAuO31Rg972WeMvdR_57Qu-aVM8T6DkQ
- https://blahcat.github.io/posts/2017/08/01/gef-at-black-hat-arsenal-us-2017.html
- https://github.com/toolswatch/blackhat-arsenal-tools/blob/master/exploitation/gef.md
gf: A GDB Frontend
- A GDB frontend for Linux.
- https://github.com/nakst/gf
libdebugme: Automatically drop to gdb on error
- https://github.com/yugr/libdebugme
OnlineGDB
- "OnlineGDB an online compiler and debugger tool for C/C++ languages. It is world's first online IDE which gives debugging facility with embedded gdb."
- http://OnlineGDB.com
PEDA - Python Exploit Development Assistance for GDB
- https://github.com/longld/peda
- https://web.archive.org/web/20160126173234/https://eugenekolo.com/blog/better-disassembly-with-gdb-peda/
- http://ropshell.com/peda/Linux_Interactive_Exploit_Development_with_GDB_and_PEDA_Slides.pdf
PINCE: front-end reverse engineering tool for the GDB - https://github.com/korcankaraokcu/PINCE
pwndbg - Exploit Development and Reverse Engineering with GDB Made Easy
- https://github.com/pwndbg/pwndbg
- https://github.com/pwndbg/pwndbg/blob/dev/FEATURES.md
Pwngdb - https://github.com/scwuaptx/Pwngdb
pygdbmi - Get Structured Output from GDB's Machine Interface - https://github.com/cs01/pygdbmi
QuickPatch: a GDB plug-in to patch an ELF file
- https://github.com/invictus1306/QuickPatch
- https://invictus1306.github.io/vulnerabilities/2019/10/20/quickpatch.html
Seer - a GUI frontend to gdb
- https://github.com/epasveer/seer
SymGDB - symbolic execution plugin for gdb
- https://github.com/SQLab/symgdb

GDB: Projects: Decompilation

decomp2dbg: A plugin to introduce a generic API for decompiler support in GDB
- https://github.com/mahaloz/decomp2dbg

GDB: Projects: Editor Integration

GDB-MI: a package by Nick Roberts which makes Emacs use GDB/MI interface to talk with the GNU Debugger
- https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GDB-MI
GDB graphical interface for GNU Emacs
- https://github.com/weirdNox/emacs-gdb
Native Debug
- GDB & LLDB Debugger support for VSCode
- https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=webfreak.debug
- https://github.com/WebFreak001/code-debug
neogdb.vim: Vim GDB front-end for neovim
- https://github.com/huawenyu/neogdb.vim
nvim-gdb: Neovim thin wrapper for GDB, LLDB, PDB/PDB++, and BashDB
- https://github.com/sakhnik/nvim-gdb
RealGUD: An extensible, modular GNU Emacs front-end for interacting with external debuggers
- https://github.com/realgud/realgud

GDB: Projects: Memory Debugging

pahole-gdb: pahole implementation for gdb - https://github.com/PhilArmstrong/pahole-gdb
gdb-heap

GDB: Projects: Plotting

GDBplotlib: Plotting and exporting of variables from GDB
- https://github.com/X-Neon/gdbplotlib
gdb-plot
- a set of utils for: plotting from the gdb command line, saving c data to .mat files from gdb command line, exploring the stack frame
- https://github.com/bthcode/gdb-plot

GDB: Projects: Profiling

gdbpmp: A GDB Based Wallclock Profiler - https://github.com/markhpc/gdbpmp
gdbprof: A wall clock time-based profiler built on GDB's Python interface
- https://github.com/Muon/gdbprof
- https://github.com/markhpc/gdbprof
GDB profiler: Rich man's profiler, a profiler for native OCaml and other executables
- https://github.com/copy/gdbprofiler

LLDB

The LLDB Debugger - https://lldb.llvm.org/

LLDB: Projects

ds2: Debug server for lldb
- ds2 is a debug server designed to be used with LLDB to perform remote debugging of Linux, Android, FreeBSD, Windows and Windows Phone targets. Windows/Windows Phone support is still under active development.
- https://github.com/facebook/ds2
- 2015 LLVM Developers’ Meeting: Stephane Sezer "ds2, a tiny debug server used with lldb"
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n00EhLskJWk&list=PL_R5A0lGi1AA4Lv2bBFSwhgDaHvvpVU21&index=27
GALA: GDB API over LLDB API
- An adapter package which enables GDB Python API in LLDB
- https://github.com/sivachandra/gala
GDBundle: Plugin Manager for GDB and LLDB
- https://github.com/memfault/gdbundle
- gdbundle - GDB and LLDB's Missing Plugin Manager
  - https://interrupt.memfault.com/blog/gdbundle-plugin-manager
LLEF: LLDB Enhanced Features
- https://github.com/foundryzero/llef
LLDB Scripts: A collection of LLDB aliases/regexes and Python scripts to aid in your debugging sessions
lldb-eval: blazing fast debug expression evaluation
- https://github.com/google/lldb-eval/
- Blazing fast expression evaluation for C++ in LLDB
  - https://werat.dev/blog/blazing-fast-expression-evaluation-for-c-in-lldb/
- Building a faster expression evaluator for LLDB
  - LLVM Developers’ Meeting 2021
  - Andy Yankovsky
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aThSRGjYdA
  - https://llvm.org/devmtg/2021-11/slides/2021-Buildingafaster-expression-evaluatorforLLDB.pdf
lldbinit: Similar implementation of .gdbinit from fG! for lldb in python
- https://github.com/deroko/lldbinit
LLDBINIT: A gdbinit clone for LLDB
- https://github.com/gdbinit/lldbinit
- https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/blog/2020/4/20/mindshare-using-lldbinit-to-enhance-the-lldb-debugger
Vegvisir: A browser based GUI for LLDB Debugger
- https://github.com/ant4g0nist/vegvisir
vplot: C++ container graph visualization for lldb
- https://github.com/egladysh/vplot

LLDB: Projects: Editor Integration

CodeLLDB: a LLDB front end for Visual Studio Code - https://github.com/vadimcn/vscode-lldb
LLDB Neovim Frontend - https://github.com/dbgx/lldb.nvim
LLDB Vim Frontend - https://github.com/gilligan/vim-lldb
Native Debug
- GDB & LLDB Debugger support for VSCode
- https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=webfreak.debug
- https://github.com/WebFreak001/code-debug
nvim-gdb: Neovim thin wrapper for GDB, LLDB, PDB/PDB++, and BashDB
- https://github.com/sakhnik/nvim-gdb

LLDB: Readings

LLDB Cheat Sheet
- https://www.nesono.com/content/lldb-cheat-sheet
- https://www.nesono.com/sites/default/files/lldb%20cheat%20sheet.pdf
LLDB for GDB Users – Command Summary
- https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/General/Conceptual/lldb-guide/chapters/A3-GDB-Summary.html
LLDB Scripts - Debugging the Swift Compiler
- https://github.com/apple/swift/blob/main/docs/DebuggingTheCompiler.md#debugging-the-compiler-using-lldb-scripts
LLDB to GDB Command Map - https://lldb.llvm.org/lldb-gdb.html
Beyond Debug Information: Improving Program Reconstruction in LLDB using C++ Modules
- 2019 Master’s Thesis; Raphael Isemann
- https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12380/300037
Debugging SIMD in LLDB
- 2024-03-30
- Bartosz Taudul
- https://wolf.nereid.pl/posts/simd-debugging/
How to Extend LLDB to Provide a Better Debugging Experience
- https://pspdfkit.com/blog/2018/how-to-extend-lldb-to-provide-a-better-debugging-experience/
LLDB support for fork(2) and vfork(2)
- https://www.moritz.systems/blog/lldb-support-for-fork-and-vfork/
Tips for writing LLDB pretty printers
- https://offlinemark.com/2022/10/13/tips-for-writing-lldb-pretty-printers/

LLDB: Talks

Better C++ debugging using Clang Modules in LLDB
- 2019 LLVM Developers’ Meeting; Raphael Isemann
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuNZLlHhy0k
- http://llvm.org/devmtg/2019-10/talk-abstracts.html#tech13
Bringing RenderScript to LLDB
- 2016 EuroLLVM Developers' Meeting; Luke Drummond & Ewan Crawford, Codeplay
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBC61L0QKCM
- http://www.llvm.org/devmtg/2016-03/Presentations/EuroLLVM2016-E.Crawford_and_L.Drummond-Bringing_RenderScript_to_LLDB.pdf
Debugging Tips and Tricks
- WWDC 2016; Kate Stone, Enrico Granata, Sean Callanan, Jim Ingham
- https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/417
Debugging with LLDB
- WWDC 2012; Greg Clayton
- https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2012/415/
Debugging with LLVM: A quick introduction to LLDB and LLVM sanitizers
- FOSDEM 2020; Andrzej Warzynski; Graham Hunter
- https://fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/debugging_with_llvm/
ds2: a tiny debug server used with lldb
- 2015 LLVM Developers’ Meeting; Stephane Sezer, Facebook
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n00EhLskJWk
- https://github.com/facebook/ds2
LLDB - a new C++ debugger
- DevConf.CZ 2019; Jan Kratochvíl
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BjKNaiB3yM
- https://devconfcz2019.sched.com/event/Jcht
LLDB Reproducers
- 2019 EuroLLVM Developers’ Meeting; Jonas Devlieghere
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygdzXnfyvbg
- http://llvm.org/devmtg/2019-04/talks.html#Talk_12
LLDB Tutorial: Adding debugger support for your target
- 2016 EuroLLVM Developers' Meeting; Deepak Panickal & Andrzej Warzynski, Codeplay
- https://github.com/codeplaysoftware/lldb-msp430
- http://www.llvm.org/devmtg/2016-03/Tutorials/LLDB-tutorial.pdf
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hhDZeV0fYU
LLDB: Beyond "po"
- WWDC 2019; Davide Italiano, Jonas Devlieghere
- https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/429/
- https://www.raywenderlich.com/3868932-wwdc-2019-top-10-videos#toc-anchor-011
Migrating from GDB to LLDB
- WWDC 2011; Jim Ingham
- https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2011/321/
Support for mini-debuginfo in LLDB
- How to read the .gnu_debugdata section.
- FOSDEM 2020; Konrad Kleine
- https://fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/debugging_mini/
Why should I use LLDB?
- 2015 EuroLLVM Developers’ Meeting; Deepak Panickal and Ewan Crawford
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtpQZw9NpIU
- https://llvm.org/devmtg/2015-04/slides/Why_should_I_use_LLDB.pdf

RR

RR: Record and Replay Framework
- http://rr-project.org/
- https://github.com/mozilla/rr

RR: Projects

Control Flow Visualizer (CFViz): an rr / gdb plugin
- https://botondballo.wordpress.com/2017/12/22/control-flow-visualizer-cfviz-an-rr-gdb-plugin/
- https://bitbucket.org/botond/cfviz
rr-dataflow: An 'origin' command that continues to the origin of a piece of data in rr
- https://github.com/jrmuizel/rr-dataflow
- Using rr-dataflow: Why and How? - https://www.mgaudet.ca/technical/2018/10/18/using-rr-dataflow-why-and-how

RR: Readings

Engineering Record And Replay For Deployability
- USENIX ATC 2017
- Robert O'Callahan, Chris Jones, Nathan Froyd, Kyle Huey, Albert Noll, Nimrod Partush
- https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.05937
- https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc17/technical-sessions/presentation/ocallahan
Lightweight User-Space Record And Replay
- 2016
- Robert O'Callahan, Chris Jones, Nathan Froyd, Kyle Huey, Albert Noll, Nimrod Partush
- https://robert.ocallahan.org/2016/10/rr-paper-lightweight-user-space-record.html
- https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.02144
Improved debugging with rr
- https://techtalk.intersec.com/2018/03/improved-debugging-with-rr/
Instant replay: Debugging C and C++ programs with rr
- https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2021/05/03/instant-replay-debugging-c-and-c-programs-with-rr/
Timeless Debugging of Complex Software: Root Cause Analysis of a Non-Deterministic JavaScriptCore Bug
- http://blog.ret2.io/2018/06/19/pwn2own-2018-root-cause-analysis/

OS-specific

iOS

Chisel: a collection of LLDB commands to assist debugging iOS apps
- https://github.com/facebook/chisel
KTRW: An iOS kernel debugger based on a KTRR bypass for A11 iPhones that works with LLDB
- https://github.com/googleprojectzero/ktrw
- KTRW: The journey to build a debuggable iPhone
  - https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2019/10/ktrw-journey-to-build-debuggable-iphone.html

Linux

AFLTriage: A tool to triage crashing input files with a debugger (GDB, Linux)
- https://github.com/quic/AFLTriage
Crash Utility: Linux kernel crash utility
- https://github.com/crash-utility/crash
- https://crash-utility.github.io/
crash-python: a semantic debugger for the Linux kernel
- https://github.com/jeffmahoney/crash-python
debuginfod
- elfutils debuginfod is a client/server in elfutils 0.178+ that automatically distributes elf/dwarf/source-code from servers to clients such as debuggers across HTTP
  - https://sourceware.org/elfutils/Debuginfod.html
- Deploying debuginfod servers for your developers
  - https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2019/12/17/deploying-debuginfod-servers-for-your-developers/
- The elfutils debuginfod server
  - FOSDEM 2020; Mark Wielaard, Frank Ch. Eigler
  - https://fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/debugging_debuginfod/
- Introducing debuginfod, the elfutils debuginfo server
  - https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2019/10/14/introducing-debuginfod-the-elfutils-debuginfo-server/
- elfutils debuginfo-server
  - GNU Tools Cauldron 2019; Frank Ch. Eigler, Aaron Merey
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyOXWT_EBJ0
  - https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/cauldron2019talks?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=dbgserver.pdf
drgn: Scriptable debugger library
- https://github.com/osandov/drgn/
- https://drgn.readthedocs.io/
- A kernel debugger in Python: drgn
  - 2019-05-29; Jake Edge
  - https://lwn.net/Articles/789641/
- Introducing CTF Support in Drgn for Oracle Linux
  - 2024-10-03; Stephen Brennan
  - https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/introducing-ctf-support-in-drgn-for-oracle-linux
edb: a cross platform x86/x86-64 debugger
- https://github.com/eteran/edb-debugger
Hermit: A reproducible container
- Hermit launches Linux x86_64 programs in a special, hermetically isolated sandbox to control their execution. Hermit translates normal, nondeterministic behavior, into deterministic, repeatable behavior. This can be used for various applications, including replay-debugging, reproducible artifacts, chaos mode concurrency testing and bug analysis.
- https://github.com/facebookexperimental/hermit
- Hermit: Deterministic Linux for Controlled Testing and Software Bug-finding
  - https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2022/11/22/hermit-deterministic-linux-testing/
ich: Linux crash harness with runtime process instrumentation
- https://github.com/zznop/ich
kdress: Transform vmlinuz into a fully debuggable vmlinux that can be used with /proc/kcore
- https://github.com/elfmaster/kdress
libkdumpfile: Kernel coredump file access
- https://github.com/ptesarik/libkdumpfile
libthread_db
- Notes about an odd, esoteric, yet incredibly useful library: libthread_db
  - https://web.archive.org/http://timetobleed.com/notes-about-an-odd-esoteric-yet-incredibly-useful-library-libthread_db/
LIKE-DBG (LInux-KErnel-DeBuGger): Fully dockerized Linux kernel debugging environment
- https://github.com/0xricksanchez/like-dbg
makedumpfile: Make Linux crash dump small by filtering and compressing pages
- https://github.com/makedumpfile/makedumpfile
nnd: A debugger for Linux
- https://github.com/al13n321/nnd
ORC (Oops Rewind Capability) Unwinder
- Commit ee9f8fce9964
- Commit 39358a033b2e
- ORC unwinder - https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/x86/orc-unwinder.rst
- The Linux x86 ORC Stack Unwinder - http://www.codeblueprint.co.uk/2017/07/31/the-orc-unwinder.html
- The ORCs are coming - https://lwn.net/Articles/728339/
- x86: ORC unwinder (previously undwarf) - https://lwn.net/Articles/727553/
- Unwinding a Stack by Hand with Frame Pointers and ORC
  - 2022
  - Stephen Brennan
  - https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/unwinding-stack-frame-pointers-and-orc
PageBuster: dump all executable pages of packed processes
- https://github.com/revng/pagebuster
- PageBuster: stealthily dump all the code ever executed
  - https://rev.ng/blog/pagebuster/post.html
plutonium-dbg: A kernel-based debugger for Linux applications
- https://github.com/plutonium-dbg/plutonium-dbg
- Kernel-Assisted Debugging of Linux Applications
  - Reversing and Offensive-oriented Trends Symposium (ROOTS) 2018
  - Tobias Holl, Philipp Klocke, Fabian Franzen, and Julian Kirsch
  - https://vimeo.com/307238462
  - https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3289596
Reverie: An ergonomic and safe syscall interception framework for Linux
- Reverie is a user space system-call interception framework for Linux. It can be used to intercept, modify, or elide a syscall before the kernel executes it. In essence, Reverie sits at the boundary between user space and kernel space.
- https://github.com/facebookexperimental/reverie
Scout - Instruction based research debugger
- an extendable basic debugger designed for use in those cases that there is no built-in debugger / gdb-stub in the debugee process / firmware
- https://github.com/CheckPointSW/Scout
- https://scout-debugger.readthedocs.io/
sdb: The Slick/Simple Debugger
- A postmortem and live debugger
- https://github.com/delphix/sdb
- Debugging ZFS: From Illumos to Linux
  - OpenZFS Developer Summit 2019; Serapheim Dimitropoulos
  - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oho9X5bkW-I-yJ-pVD8VqkaloxhGepzT/view
symbol-scrapers: A bunch of scripts to scrape symbols from Linux distributions
- https://github.com/gabrielesvelto/symbol-scrapers/
vmlinux-to-elf: A tool to recover a fully analyzable ELF from a raw kernel, through extracting the kernel symbol table (kallsyms)
- https://github.com/marin-m/vmlinux-to-elf

Linux: Readings

Live Debugging Techniques for the Linux Kernel
- Part 1: setting up an Oracle Linux virtual machine
  - https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/live-kernel-debugging-1
- Part 2: basic techniques utilizing gdb & QEMU's gdbserver, gdb Python
  - https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/live-kernel-debugging-2
- Part 3: advanced techniques: kdb and kgdboc, crash
  - https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/live-kernel-debugging-3
The Definitive Guide to Linux Process Injection
- 2024; Ori David
- https://www.akamai.com/blog/security-research/the-definitive-guide-to-linux-process-injection
- Linux Process Injection: proof-of-concept implementations of various Linux process injection primitives
- https://github.com/akamai/Linux-Process-Injection
Under Linux, libSegFault and addr2line are underrated
- https://lemire.me/blog/2023/05/01/under-linux-libsegfault-and-addr2line-are-underrated/
What's Inside a Linux Kernel Core Dump
- 2024-02-08; Stephen Brennan
- https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/whats-inside-a-linux-kernel-core-dump
- vmcoreinfo: tools related to vmcoreinfo: findvmcoreinfo.py, editvmcoreinfo.c, get_vmcoreinfo.c, vmcoreinfosize.py
  - https://github.com/brenns10/kernel_stuff/tree/master/vmcoreinfo

Linux: Talks

Linux Debuginfo Formats - DWARF, ELF, dwo, dwp - What are They All?
- CppCon 2022
- Greg Law
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3h7F9za_pc
Linux Kernel Debugging: Going Beyond Printk Messages
- Embedded Linux Conference Europe (ELCE) 2019; Sergio Prado
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDXYpR_m1CU
- https://elinux.org/images/1/14/Linuxkerneldebugging.pdf
- https://e-labworks.com/talks/elce2019

macOS

LLDBagility
- https://github.com/quarkslab/LLDBagility/
- a tool for debugging macOS virtual machines with the aid of the Fast Debugging Protocol (FDP)
- https://blog.quarkslab.com/an-overview-of-macos-kernel-debugging.html
- https://blog.quarkslab.com/lldbagility-practical-macos-kernel-debugging.html
Mac OS X Debugging Magic - https://developer.apple.com/library/content/technotes/tn2124/_index.html

Windows

BugChecker: SoftICE-like kernel debugger for Windows
- Windows XP to 11, x86 and x64
- https://github.com/vitoplantamura/BugChecker
DbgShell: A PowerShell front-end for the Windows debugger engine
- https://github.com/Microsoft/DbgShell/
DuBStep (Dynamic Breakpoint API): A Library for creating hardware execution and data breakpoints at runtime on Win32/Win64
- https://github.com/justinboswell/dubstep
HyperDbg: an open-source, user mode and kernel mode Windows debugger with a focus on using hardware technologies
- https://hyperdbg.com
- https://github.com/HyperDbg/HyperDbg
IceBox: Virtual Machine Introspection, Tracing & Debugging
- https://github.com/thalium/icebox
kdmp-parser: Windows kernel dump C++ parser
- https://github.com/0vercl0k/kdmp-parser
makin - reveal anti-debug tricks (Windows)
- https://github.com/secrary/makin
Nanomite - Windows Debugger for x64 and x86
- https://github.com/zer0fl4g/Nanomite/
OllyDbg
- http://www.ollydbg.de/
ScyllaHide: Advanced usermode anti-anti-debugger
- https://github.com/x64dbg/ScyllaHide
TitanHide: Hiding kernel-driver for x86/x64
- a driver intended to hide debuggers from certain processes
- https://github.com/mrexodia/TitanHide
udmp-parser: A Cross-Platform C++ parser library for Windows user minidumps
- https://github.com/0vercl0k/udmp-parser
WubbabooMark: Debugger Anti-Detection Benchmark
- https://github.com/hfiref0x/WubbabooMark
x64dbg
- https://x64dbg.com/
- https://github.com/x64dbg/x64dbg

Windows: Readings

An RPC Debugging Framework with Visual Studio
- http://donw.io/post/rpc-debugging-vs/
Anti-Debug Tricks
- This encyclopedia contains the description of anti-debug tricks which work on the latest Windows releases with the most popular debuggers (such as OllyDbg, WinDbg, x64dbg).
- https://anti-debug.checkpoint.com/
- https://github.com/CheckPointSW/Anti-Debug-DB
Creating a Public Symbol Server, Easily
- https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2020/03/14/creating-a-public-symbol-server-easily/
Debug Recipes (.NET and Windows problems) - https://github.com/lowleveldesign/debug-recipes
Debugging in Visual Studio - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/debugger/debugger-feature-tour
Debugging Tools for Windows (WinDbg, KD, CDB, NTSD)
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/
Hardware breakpoints and exceptions on Windows
- https://ling.re/hardware-breakpoints/
Showing Variables Using the Windows Debugging API
- Overload 29(165) October 2021
- Roger Orr
- https://accu.org/journals/overload/29/165/orr/
- https://github.com/rogerorr/articles/tree/main/Debugging_Optimised_Code
Windows Debugging Tools - Debugging Resources
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/debugging-resources

Visual Studio Debugger

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/debugger/
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/tag/debug/
A Debugging Tip: Write Custom Visualizers in Visual Studio
- https://www.cppstories.com/2021/natvis-dbg-tip/
- https://github.com/fenbf/articles/tree/master/DebuggingTipsSamples

WinDbg

Introduction to WinDbg and debugging Windows - series by Anand George
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhx7-txsG6t6n_E2LgDGqgvJtCHPL7UFu
Modern Debugging with WinDbg Preview
- DEFCON 27 (2019) Workshop Materials
- https://github.com/hugsy/defcon_27_windbg_workshop/
- WinDbg cheatsheet
  - https://github.com/hugsy/defcon_27_windbg_workshop/blob/master/windbg_cheatsheet.md
Time Travel Debugging - James McNellis
- Meeting C++ 2018 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyVQnP-U_ho
- Pacific++ 2018 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVslyei0804
WinDbg Basics for Malware Analysis
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuFJpH3My7A
WinDbg: time to put the @ back in the bag
- vOPCDE #6 2020; Yarden Shafir
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eONddXQjy2k

WinDbg: Readings

Collection of WinDbg resources - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/reiley/2012/07/28/collection-of-windbg-resources/
Break On Process Creation in WinDbg
- https://shakreiner.com/posts/break-on-process-windbg/
Debugger Data Model, Javascript & X64 Exception Handling - https://doar-e.github.io/blog/2017/12/01/debugger-data-model/
Debugger Lies: Stack Corruption
- https://www.timdbg.com/posts/debugger-lies-part-1/
Debugging Tools for Windows - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/windbg/
Exploiting flaws in WinDbg: how to escape or fool debuggers from existing flaws
- Journal of Computer Virology and Hacking Techniques (2020)
- François Plumerault, Baptiste David
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11416-020-00347-x
JavaScript bridge makes malware analysis with WinDbg easier
- https://blog.talosintelligence.com/2019/02/windbg-malware-analysis-with-javascript.html
Stupid debugger tricks: Calling functions and methods - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20070427-00/?p=27083
Time travel debugging: It’s a blast! (from the past)
- https://msrc.microsoft.com/blog/2019/05/time-travel-debugging-its-a-blast-from-the-past/
Tips & Tricks for better debugging with WinDbg
- REcon 2024
- Chris Alladoum
- https://cfp.recon.cx/recon2024/talk/GK8YDV/
- https://github.com/hugsy/recon_2024_windbg_workshop
Tutorial: Using WinDbg to call arbitrary functions — WinDBG kung-fu series
- http://cfc.kizzx2.com/index.php/tutorial-using-windbg-to-call-arbitrary-functions-windbg-kung-fu-series/
Undocumented WinDbg - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/reiley/2011/10/30/undocumented-windbg/
Use Windows Debuggers for Non-Debugging Tasks - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/reiley/2011/10/23/use-windows-debuggers-for-non-debugging-tasks/
Using Function Evaluation in WinDbg - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/reiley/2012/08/18/using-function-evaluation-in-windbg/
What's the Debugger Data Model? (And Why?)
- 2022; Tim Misiak
- https://www.timdbg.com/posts/whats-the-data-model/
What's the Target Model? (And Why?)
- 2022; Tim Misiak
- https://www.timdbg.com/posts/whats-the-target-model/
WinDbg automation and extensions - https://web.archive.org/https://nativecoding.wordpress.com/2016/01/10/automate-attach-to-process-on-windows-with-windbg/
WinDbg Malware Analysis Cheat Sheet
- https://web.archive.org/https://oalabs.openanalysis.net/2019/02/18/windbg-for-malware-analysis/
WinDbg — the Fun Way
- Part 1: the basics of the new debugger data model — Using the new objects, having custom registers, searching and filtering output, declaring anonymous types and parsing lists and arrays
  - https://medium.com/@yardenshafir2/windbg-the-fun-way-part-1-2e4978791f9b
- Part 2: how to use legacy commands with dx, the new disassembler, create synthetic methods and types, the changes to breakpoints and use the filesystem from within the debugger
  - https://medium.com/@yardenshafir2/windbg-the-fun-way-part-2-7a904cba5435
WinDbg, Debugger Objects, and JavaScript! Oh, My! - https://www.osr.com/blog/2017/05/18/windbg-debugger-objects-javascript-oh/
Yet Another Hello World - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/reiley/2011/09/29/yet-another-hello-world/

WinDbg: Projects

0CCh WinDbg extension - https://github.com/0cch/0cchext
DbgModelCppLib: A header-only C++ library for producing and consuming data from the debugger data model
- https://github.com/Microsoft/WinDbg-Libraries/tree/master/DbgModelCppLib
- https://github.com/Microsoft/WinDbg-Samples/tree/master/DataModelHelloWorld/Cpp
TWindbg: PEDA-like debugger UI for WinDbg - https://github.com/bruce30262/TWindbg
WDBGARK: WinDbg Anti-RootKit extension - https://github.com/swwwolf/wdbgark
Winbagility: a tool to connect WinDbg on non /DEBUG Windows x64 systems
- http://winbagility.github.io
- https://github.com/Winbagility/Winbagility
WinDbg-Samples: Sample extensions, scripts, and API uses for WinDbg
- https://github.com/Microsoft/WinDbg-Samples
WinDbgCookbook: small, useful scripts, extensions, and debugger data model "dx" queries
- https://github.com/TimMisiak/WinDbgCookbook
WinDBGtree: A command tree based on commands and extensions for Windows Kernel Debugging
- https://github.com/vagnerpilar/windbgtree

WinDbg: Talks

A first look into how WinDbg works
- 2022; Tim Misiak
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QStC084UrgY

WinDbg: Time Travel Debugging

Time Travel Debugging FAQ - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/windbg/2017/10/20/time-travel-debugging-faq/
Time Travel Debugging - Overview - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/time-travel-debugging-overview
Time Travel Debugging - Sample App Walkthrough - https://aka.ms/ttdtutorial
Time Travel Debugging: Root Causing Bugs in Commercial Scale Software
- CppCon 2017
- James McNellis, Jordi Mola, Ken Sykes
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1YJTg_A914
Time Travel Debugging - Advanced
- Defrag Tools #186 (2017)
- Andrew Richards, JCAB (Juan Carlos Arevalo Baeza), Jordi Mola
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/shows/defrag-tools/186-time-travel-debugging-advanced
TTD-Bindings: Bindings for Microsoft WinDbg Time Travel Debugging (TTD)
- https://github.com/commial/ttd-bindings

Crash Analysis & Reporting

Breakpad: a set of client and server components which implement a crash-reporting system
- https://github.com/google/breakpad
CASR: Crash Analysis and Severity Report
- Collect crash reports, triage, and estimate severity
- https://github.com/ispras/casr
- "CASR is a set of tools that allows you to collect crash reports in different ways. Use casr-core binary to deal with coredumps. Use casr-san to analyze ASAN reports or casr-ubsan to analyze UBSAN reports. Try casr-gdb to get reports from gdb."
- "Crash report contains many useful information: severity (like exploitable), OS and package versions, command line, stack trace, register values, disassembly, and even source code fragment where crash appeared. Reports are stored in JSON format. casr-cli is meant to provide TUI for viewing reports. Reports triage (deduplication, clustering) is done by casr-cluster. Triage is based on stack trace comparison from gdb-command. casr-afl is used to triage crashes found by AFL++."
- Casr-Cluster: Crash Clustering for Linux Applications
  - ISPRAS 2021
  - Georgy Savidov, Andrey Fedotov
  - https://www.doi.org/10.1109/ISPRAS53967.2021.00012
- Sydr-Fuzz: Continuous Hybrid Fuzzing and Dynamic Analysis for Security Development Lifecycle
  - ISPRAS 2022
  - Alexey Vishnyakov, Daniil Kuts, Vlada Logunova, Darya Parygina, Eli Kobrin, Georgy Savidov, Andrey Fedotov
  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.11595
Core Explorer: A DWARF parser and core dump analyzer that runs in your browser
- A static analyzer for dynamic memory. Analyze core dumps to find ODR violations, memory leaks, and use-after-free hazards. List all objects, types, allocations, and threads and visualize the relationships between them.
- https://github.com/core-explorer/core-explorer/
Crashpad: a crash-reporting system
- https://github.com/chromium/crashpad
- Backtrace fork of Crashpad
  - A fork of Crashpad with file attachment support and other improvements.
  - https://github.com/backtrace-labs/crashpad
dump_syms: Rewrite of breakpad dump_syms tools in Rust
- a command-line utility for parsing the debugging information the compiler provides (whether as DWARF or STABS sections in an ELF file or as stand-alone PDB files) and writing that information back out in the Breakpad symbol file format.
- https://github.com/mozilla/dump_syms
llvm-crash-analyzer: A Tool for the Program Analysis of Corefiles
- designed to observe/triage the root cause of the crash
- as an outcome it will point to a blame function, machine instruction, and line of source code of the problematic piece of the program
- https://github.com/cisco-open/llvm-crash-analyzer
- 2022 LLVM Performance Workshop at CGO
  - Djordje Todorovic, Bharathi Seshadri, Ananthakrishna Sowda, Nikola Tesic, Ivan Baev
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4TkdYZfarA
  - https://llvm.org/devmtg/2022-04-03/slides/llvm-crash-analyzer.pdf
rust-minidump: Type definitions, parsing, and analysis for the minidump file format
- "fairly heavily modeled after Google Breakpad for historical reasons, but there is no fundamental interoperability requirement between the two beyond the fact that they fundamentally handle the same inputs."
- https://github.com/rust-minidump/rust-minidump
- Everything Is Broken: Shipping rust-minidump at Mozilla
  - https://hacks.mozilla.org/2022/06/everything-is-broken-shipping-rust-minidump-at-mozilla/
- Fuzzing rust-minidump for Embarrassment and Crashes – Part 2
  - https://hacks.mozilla.org/2022/06/fuzzing-rust-minidump-for-embarrassment-and-crashes/

Stack Trace & Unwinding

Stack Trace & Unwinding: Readings

Compressing callstacks: a bitpacked DAG powered by a keyless hashmap
- 2025-12-01
- Jelle van der Beek
- https://superluminal.eu/compressing-callstacks/
Fast Call-Stack Backtrace
- 2025-10-20; Branimir Karadžić
- https://bkaradzic.github.io/posts/fast-call-stack-backtrace/
Limitations of frame pointer unwinding
- Serhei Makarov
- https://developers.redhat.com/articles/2024/10/30/limitations-frame-pointer-unwinding
Programmatic access to the call stack in C++
- https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2015/programmatic-access-to-the-call-stack-in-c/
- Draft C++ Standard: Stacktrace - https://eel.is/c++draft/stacktrace - https://timsong-cpp.github.io/cppwp/stacktrace - Standard library header (C++23) - https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/header/stacktrace - P0881: A Proposal to Add a Stacktrace Library - https://wg21.link/P0881 - C++23: The stacktrace library - https://www.sandordargo.com/blog/2022/09/21/cpp23-stacktrace-library
Stack unwinding
- MaskRay (Fangrui Song)
- https://maskray.me/blog/2020-11-08-stack-unwinding
Unwind specification draft for GNU/Linux/ia64 (extends the exception ABI)
- https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/devel/gcc/unwind/
Unwinding the stack the hard way
- 2023; Kévin Lesénéchal
- Tutorial on how to make a stack trace or backtrace manually unwinding the stack using ELF’s .eh_frame and call frame information (CFI)
- https://lesenechal.fr/en/linux/unwinding-the-stack-the-hard-way

Stack Trace & Unwinding: Software

BacktraceResolver: Very fast backtraces resolver
- https://github.com/markpapadakis/BacktraceResolver
Backward-cpp: a beautiful stack trace pretty printer for C++
- https://github.com/bombela/backward-cpp
Boost.Stacktrace
- https://github.com/boostorg/stacktrace
- http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/doc/html/stacktrace.html
cpptrace: Lightweight, zero-configuration-required, and cross-platform stacktrace library for C++
- supports C++11 and greater on Linux, macOS, and Windows including MinGW and Cygwin environments
- https://github.com/jeremy-rifkin/cpptrace
libgcc_s (GNU) - https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gccint/Libgcc.html
- Data Definitions for libgcc_s - https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/LSB_5.0.0/LSB-Core-generic/LSB-Core-generic/libgcc-s-ddefs.html
- Interfaces for libgcc_s - https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/LSB_5.0.0/LSB-Core-generic/LSB-Core-generic/libgcc-s.html
- Interfaces Definitions for libgcc_s - https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/LSB_5.0.0/LSB-Core-generic/LSB-Core-generic/libgcc-sman.html
libunwind (nongnu.org) - http://www.nongnu.org/libunwind/
pstack: Print stack traces of running processes. Uses its own ELF and DWARF parsing
- https://github.com/peadar/pstack
quickstack: a tool to take call stack traces with minimal overheads
- https://github.com/yoshinorim/quickstack

Stack Trace & Unwinding: Talks

Advanced Usage of the C++23 Stacktrace Library
- ACCU 2024
- James Pascoe
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rynny8wP3M4
- https://github.com/jamespascoe/accu2024-example-code
- https://github.com/jamespascoe/accu2024-stacktrace/tree/gh-pages
C++ Exceptions and Stack Unwinding
- CppCon 2017: Dave Watson
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ivd3qzgT7U
Profiling framepointer-less code with elfutils stacktrace
- GNU Tools Cauldron 2024
- Serhei Makarov
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjHWbo_ZF-E
- http://serhei.io/files/cauldron2024-slides.pdf
- https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/cauldron2024#cauldron2024talks.profiling_framepointerless_code_with_elfutils_stacktrace
Stack Tracing in C++
- Chicago C++ User Group 2024
- Jeremy Rifkin
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qduj3ohxcUQ

Talks

2023

Back to Basics: Debugging in Cpp
- CppCon 2023
- Greg Law
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgszy9GquRs
- https://github.com/CppCon/CppCon2023/blob/main/Presentations/B2B_Debugging_CppCon_2023.pdf
Debugging C++ Code： A Practical and Interactive Guide
- Sebastian Theophil
- https://www.think-cell.com/assets/en/career/talks/pdf/think-cell_talk_debugging.pdf
- CppNow 2023
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB09yTXtFUo
  - https://github.com/boostcon/cppnow_presentations_2023/blob/main/cppnow_slides/Nobody_Can_Program_Correctly.pdf
- Core C++ 2023
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogV0olQJax4

2021

Debugging Techniques
Modern Linux C++ Debugging Tools: Under the Covers
- ACCU 2021; Greg Law & Dewang Li
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYbGDDIsH4M

2019

Modern Linux C++ Debugging Tools: Under the Covers
- CppCon 2019; Greg Law & Dewang Li
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoRmXjVxuFQ
- https://github.com/CppCon/CppCon2019/tree/master/Presentations/modern_linux_cpp_debugging_tools__under_the_covers

2018

GNU Tools Cauldron 2018
- gOlogy: impact of -O* on -g
- A collection of debug info improvements for the GNU Compiler Collection
  - Alexandre Oliva, Mark J. Wielaard
  - https://gnu.wildebeest.org/~mark/cauldron-2018/DebuginfoImprovements.pdf
Let's Write a Debugger!
- linux.conf.au 2018 - Levente Kurusa
- https://www.slideshare.net/LeventeKurusa/lets-write-a-debugger
- https://opensource.com/article/18/1/how-debuggers-really-work
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS51kIHWARM
- https://github.com/levex/debugger-talk

2017

Debugging the debugger - BSDCan 2017, Samy Bahra
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyF-hGGPJMs
- Compiler debug quality suite - https://github.com/backtrace-labs/cdqs
- http://www.bsdcan.org/2017/schedule/events/787.en.html
Debugging Under Fire: Keep your Head when Systems have Lost their Mind • GOTO 2017 • Bryan Cantrill
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30jNsCVLpAE
How C++ Debuggers work - Simon Brand
- C++ Edinburgh 2018
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiW24hzLy1M
- Meeting C++ 2017
  - https://meetingcpp.com/2017/talks/items/How_Cpp_Debuggers_Work.html
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Rm95Mk03c

2016

Building a Debugging Mindset - QConSF 2016 - Devon H. O'Dell
- video: https://www.infoq.com/presentations/debugging-mindset
- slides: https://speakerdeck.com/dho/building-a-debugging-mindset
- transcript: https://9vx.org/post/building-a-debugging-mindset/
How do Debuggers (Really) Work - Pawel Moll
- Linux Piter 2016
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqrxg3hl10o
  - https://ostconf.com/system/attachments/files/000/001/198/original/Pawel_Moll.pdf
- ELC 2015
  - https://vimeo.com/220644951
  - https://events.static.linuxfound.org/sites/events/files/slides/slides_16.pdf
Post-mortem Debugging: could you be the one? - Surge 2016 - Abel Mathew
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHhorNLa934
Timeless Debugging - USENIX Enigma 2016 - George Hotz
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGl6kpSajag

2015

Debugging using an exact recording of a program's execution - C++Now 2015 - Julian Smith
- Undo's Live Recorder
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWWMogzgLS4

2014

The VS Debugger: How It Works + Tips and Tricks - GoingNative 28 - Gabriel Ha, Gregg Miskelly, Steve Carroll
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/shows/c9-goingnative/goingnative-28-vs-debugger-how-it-works-tips-tricks

2011

Forensic Debugging: How to Autopsy, Repair, and Reanimate a Release-built Game
- GDC 2011; Elan Ruskin
- https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014351/Forensic-Debugging-How-to-Autopsy

C++ links: debugging: articles, documentation, software, and talks.

Contents

General

Standard Libraries

Readings

Books

Concurrency

Probe Effect

Implementation

Implementation: 2026

Implementation: 2025

Implementation: 2023

Correctness

Correctness: 2000-2009

Correctness: 1990-1999

Testing

Reverse Debugging

Reverse Debugging: Talks

Software Engineering

Transparency

Software

Software: Editor Integration

Software: Virtual Machine Introspection

GDB

GDB: Projects

GDB: Projects: Decompilation

GDB: Projects: Editor Integration

GDB: Projects: Memory Debugging

GDB: Projects: Plotting

GDB: Projects: Profiling

GDB: Readings

GDB: Readings: JIT Interface

GDB: Readings: Pretty Printing

GDB: Readings: Python API

GDB: Readings: Python API: TUI

GDB: Readings: Reverse Debugging

GDB: Talks

LLDB

LLDB: Projects

LLDB: Projects: Editor Integration

LLDB: Readings

LLDB: Talks

RR

RR: Projects

RR: Readings

OS-specific

iOS

Linux

Linux: Readings

Linux: Talks

macOS

Windows

Windows: Readings

Visual Studio Debugger

WinDbg

WinDbg: Readings

WinDbg: Projects

WinDbg: Talks

WinDbg: Time Travel Debugging

Crash Analysis & Reporting

Stack Trace & Unwinding

Stack Trace & Unwinding: Readings

Stack Trace & Unwinding: Software

Stack Trace & Unwinding: Talks

Talks

2023

2021

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2011