LTRACE(1) User Commands

LTRACE(1)

NAME
ltrace - A library call tracer

SYNOPSIS
ltrace [-e filter|-L] [-l|--library=library_pattern] [-x filter] [-S] [-
b|--no-signals] [-i] [-w|--where=nr] [-r|-t|-tt|-ttt]
[-T] [-F filename] [-A maxelts] [-s strsize] [-C|--demangle] [-a|--align
column] [-n|--indent nr] [-o|--output filename]
[-D|--debug mask] [-u username] [-f] [-p pid] [[--] command [arg ...]]

ltrace -c [-e filter|-L] [-l|--library=library_pattern] [-x filter] [-S]

[-o|--output filename] [-f] [-p pid] [[--] command
[arg ...]]

ltrace -V|--version

ltrace -h|--help

DESCRIPTION
ltrace is a program that simply runs the specified command until it exits.
It intercepts and records the dynamic library
calls which are called by the executed process and the signals which are
received by that process. It can also intercept and
print the system calls executed by the program.

Its use is very similar to strace(1).

OPTIONS
-a, --align column
Align return values in a specific column (default column is 5/8 of
screen width).

-A maxelts
Maximum number of array elements to print before suppressing the rest
with an ellipsis ("..."). This also limits num‐
ber of recursive structure expansions.

-b, --no-signals
Disable printing of signals recieved by the traced process.

-c Count time and calls for each library call and report a summary on
program exit.

-C, --demangle
Decode (demangle) low-level symbol names into user-level names.
Besides removing any initial underscore prefix used by
the system, this makes C++ function names readable.

-D, --debug mask

Show debugging output of ltrace itself. mask is a number with
internal meaning that's not really well defined at all.
mask of 77 shows all debug messages, which is what you usually need.

-e filter
A qualifying expression which modifies which library calls to trace.
The format of the filter expression is described
 in the section FILTER EXPRESSIONS. If more than one -e option
appears on the command line, the library calls that
match any of them are traced. If no -e is given, @MAIN is assumed as
a default.

-f Trace child processes as they are created by currently traced

processes as a result of the fork(2) or clone(2) system
calls. The new process is attached immediately.

-F filename
Load an alternate config file. Normally, /etc/ltrace.conf and
~/.ltrace.conf will be read (the latter only if it ex‐
ists). Use this option to load the given file or files instead of
those two default files. See ltrace.conf(5) for de‐
tails on the syntax of ltrace configuration files.

-h, --help
Show a summary of the options to ltrace and exit.

-i Print the instruction pointer at the time of the library call.

-l, --library library_pattern

Display only calls to functions implemented by libraries that match
library_pattern. Multiple library patters can be
specified with several instances of this option. Syntax of
library_pattern is described in section FILTER EXPRESSIONS.

Note that while this option selects calls that might be directed to
the selected libraries, there's no actual guarantee
that the call won't be directed elsewhere due to e.g. LD_PRELOAD or
simply dependency ordering. If you want to make
sure that symbols in given library are actually called, use -x
@library_pattern instead.

-L When no -e option is given, don't assume the default action of @MAIN.

-n, --indent nr
Indent trace output by nr spaces for each level of call nesting.
Using this option makes the program flow visualization
easy to follow. This indents uselessly also functions that never
return, such as service functions for throwing excep‐
tions in the C++ runtime.

-o, --output filename

Write the trace output to the file filename rather than to stderr.

-p pid Attach to the process with the process ID pid and begin tracing.
This option can be used together with passing a com‐
mand to execute. It is possible to attach to several processes by
passing more than one option -p.

-r Print a relative timestamp with each line of the trace. This records
the time difference between the beginning of suc‐
cessive lines.

-s strsize
Specify the maximum string size to print (the default is 32).

-S Display system calls as well as library calls

 -t Prefix each line of the trace with the time of day.

-tt If given twice, the time printed will include the microseconds.

-ttt If given thrice, the time printed will include the microseconds and
the leading portion will be printed as the number
of seconds since the epoch.

-T Show the time spent inside each call. This records the time
difference between the beginning and the end of each
call.

-u username
Run command with the userid, groupid and supplementary groups of
username. This option is only useful when running as
root and enables the correct execution of setuid and/or setgid
binaries.

-w, --where nr
Show backtrace of nr stack frames for each traced function. This
option enabled only if libunwind support was enabled
at compile time.

-x filter
A qualifying expression which modifies which symbol table entry
points to trace. The format of the filter expression
is described in the section FILTER EXPRESSIONS. If more than one -x
option appears on the command line, the symbols
that match any of them are traced. No entry points are traced if no
-x is given.

-V, --version
Show the version number of ltrace and exit.

FILTER EXPRESSIONS
Filter expression is a chain of glob- or regexp-based rules that are used
to pick symbols for tracing from libraries that the
process uses. Most of it is intuitive, so as an example, the following
would trace calls to malloc and free, except those
done by libc:

-e [email protected]*

This reads: trace malloc and free, but don't trace anything that comes from
libc. Semi-formally, the syntax of the above ex‐
ample looks approximately like this:

{[+-][symbol_pattern][@library_pattern]}

Symbol_pattern is used to match symbol names, library_pattern to match

library SONAMEs. Both are implicitly globs, but can be
regular expressions as well (see below). The glob syntax supports meta-
characters * and ? and character classes, similarly to
what basic bash globs support. ^ and $ are recognized to mean,
respectively, start and end of given name.

Both symbol_pattern and library_pattern have to match the whole name. If

you want to match only part of the name, surround it
 with one or two *'s as appropriate. The exception is if the pattern is
not mentioned at all, in which case it's as if the
corresponding pattern were *. (So malloc is really malloc@* and @libc.* is
really *@libc.*.)

In libraries that don't have an explicit SONAME, basename is taken for

SONAME. That holds for main binary as well: /bin/echo
has an implicit SONAME of echo. In addition to that, special library
pattern MAIN always matches symbols in the main binary
and never a library with actual SONAME MAIN (use e.g. ^MAIN or [M]AIN for
that).

If the symbol or library pattern is surrounded in slashes (/like this/),

then it is considered a regular expression instead.
As a shorthand, instead of writing /x/@/y/, you can write /x@y/.

If the library pattern starts with a slash, it is not a SONAME expression,

but a path expression, and is matched against the
library path name.

The first rule may lack a sign, in which case + is assumed. If, on the
other hand, the first rule has a - sign, it is as if
there was another rule @ in front of it, which has the effect of tracing
complement of given rule.

The above rules are used to construct the set of traced symbols. Each
candidate symbol is passed through the chain of above
rules. Initially, the symbol is unmarked. If it matches a + rule, it
becomes marked, if it matches a - rule, it becomes un‐
marked again. If, after applying all rules, the symbol is marked, it will
be traced.

BUGS
It has most of the bugs stated in strace(1).

It only works on Linux and in a small subset of architectures.

If you would like to report a bug, send a message to the mailing list
([email protected]), or use the re‐
portbug(1) program if you are under the Debian GNU/Linux distribution.

FILES
/etc/ltrace.conf
System configuration file

~/.ltrace.conf
Personal config file, overrides /etc/ltrace.conf

AUTHOR
Juan Cespedes <[email protected]>
Petr Machata <[email protected]>

SEE ALSO
ltrace.conf(5), strace(1), ptrace(2)

January 2013
LTRACE(1)