Cpptrace

Cpptrace is a lightweight C++ stacktrace library supporting C++11 and greater on Linux, macOS, and windows including mingw and cygwin environments. The goal: Make stack traces simple for once.

Some day C++23's <stacktrace> will be ubiquitous. And maybe one day the msvc implementation will be acceptable.

🚧 WIP: This library is in beta. 🏗️

Table of Contents

• Cpptrace
  • Table of Contents
  • Quick Setup
  • Other Installation Mechanisms
    • System-Wide Installation
    • Package Managers
  • API
  • Back-ends
    • Summary of Library Configurations
  • Testing Methodology
  • License

Quick Setup

With CMake FetchContent:

include(FetchContent)
FetchContent_Declare(
  cpptrace
  GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/jeremy-rifkin/cpptrace.git
  GIT_TAG        <HASH or TAG>
)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(cpptrace)
target_link_libraries(your_target cpptrace)

It's as easy as that. Cpptrace will automatically configure itself for your system.

Be sure to configure with -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug.

Other Installation Mechanisms

System-Wide Installation

git clone https://github.com/jeremy-rifkin/cpptrace.git
# optional: git checkout <HASH or TAG>
mkdir cpptrace/build
cd cpptrace/build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=On
make -j
sudo make install

Using through cmake:

find_package(cpptrace REQUIRED)
target_link_libraries(<your target> cpptrace::cpptrace)

Be sure to configure with -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug.

Or compile with -lcpptrace:

g++ main.cpp -o main -g -Wall -lcpptrace
./main

If you get an error along the lines of

error while loading shared libraries: libcpptrace.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

You may have to run sudo /sbin/ldconfig so the system finds libcpptrace.so (I had to do this on Ubuntu).

System-wide install on windows

git clone https://github.com/jeremy-rifkin/cpptrace.git
# optional: git checkout <HASH or TAG>
mkdir cpptrace/build
cd cpptrace/build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=On
msbuild cpptrace.sln
msbuild INSTALL.vcxproj

Note: You'll need to run as an administrator in a developer powershell, or use vcvarsall.bat distributed with visual studio to get the correct environment variables set.

Local User Installation

To install just for the local user (or any custom prefix):

git clone https://github.com/jeremy-rifkin/cpptrace.git
# optional: git checkout <HASH or TAG>
mkdir cpptrace/build
cd cpptrace/build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=On -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/wherever
make -j
sudo make install

Using through cmake:

find_package(cpptrace REQUIRED PATHS $ENV{HOME}/wherever)
target_link_libraries(<your target> cpptrace::cpptrace)

Using manually:

g++ main.cpp -o main -g -Wall -I$HOME/wherever/include -L$HOME/wherever/lib -lcpptrace

Package Managers

TODO

API

cpptrace::print_trace() can be used to print a stacktrace at the current call site, cpptrace::generate_trace() can be used to get raw frame information for custom use.

Note: Debug info (-g) is generally required for good trace information. Some back-ends read symbols from dynamic export information which may require -rdynamic or manually marking symbols for exporting.

namespace cpptrace {
    struct stacktrace_frame {
        uintptr_t address;
        std::uint_least32_t line;
        std::uint_least32_t col;
        std::string filename;
        std::string symbol;
    };
    std::vector<stacktrace_frame> generate_trace(std::uint32_t skip = 0);
    void print_trace(std::uint32_t skip = 0);
}

Back-ends

Back-end libraries are required for unwinding the stack and resolving symbol information (name and source location) in order to generate a stacktrace.

The CMake script attempts to automatically choose good back-ends based on what is available on your system. You can also manually set which back-end you want used.

Unwinding

Library	CMake config	Platforms	Info
libgcc unwind	CPPTRACE_UNWIND_WITH_UNWIND	linux, macos, mingw	Frames are captured with libgcc's _Unwind_Backtrace, which currently produces the most accurate stack traces on gcc/clang/mingw. Libgcc is often linked by default, and llvm has something equivalent.
execinfo.h	CPPTRACE_UNWIND_WITH_EXECINFO	linux, macos	Frames are captured with execinfo.h's backtrace, part of libc on linux/unix systems.
winapi	CPPTRACE_UNWIND_WITH_WINAPI	windows, mingw	Frames are captured with CaptureStackBackTrace.
N/A	CPPTRACE_UNWIND_WITH_NOTHING	all	Unwinding is not done, stack traces will be empty.

These back-ends require a fixed buffer has to be created to read addresses into while unwinding. By default the buffer can hold addresses for 100 frames (beyond the skip frames). This is configurable with CPPTRACE_HARD_MAX_FRAMES.

Symbol resolution

Library	CMake config	Platforms	Info
libbacktrace	CPPTRACE_GET_SYMBOLS_WITH_LIBBACKTRACE	linux, macos*, mingw*	Libbacktrace is already installed on most systems or available through the compiler directly. For clang you must specify the absolute path to backtrace.h using CPPTRACE_BACKTRACE_PATH.
addr2line	CPPTRACE_GET_SYMBOLS_WITH_ADDR2LINE	linux, macos, mingw	Symbols are resolved by invoking addr2line (or atos on mac) via fork() (on linux/unix, and popen under mingw).
dbghelp	CPPTRACE_GET_SYMBOLS_WITH_DBGHELP	windows	Dbghelp.h allows access to symbols via debug info.
libdl	CPPTRACE_GET_SYMBOLS_WITH_LIBDL	linux, macos	Libdl uses dynamic export information. Compiling with -rdynamic is needed for symbol information to be retrievable. Line numbers won't be retrievable.
N/A	CPPTRACE_GET_SYMBOLS_WITH_NOTHING	all	No attempt is made to resolve symbols.

*: Requires installation

Demangling

Lastly, depending on other back-ends used a demangler back-end may be needed. A demangler back-end is not needed when doing full traces with libbacktrace, getting symbols with addr2line, or getting symbols with dbghelp.

Library	CMake config	Platforms	Info
cxxabi.h	CPPTRACE_DEMANGLE_WITH_CXXABI	Linux, macos, mingw	Should be available everywhere other than msvc.
N/A	CPPTRACE_DEMANGLE_WITH_NOTHING	all	Don't attempt to do anything beyond what the symbol resolution back-end does.

Full tracing

Libbacktrace can generate a full stack trace itself, both unwinding and resolving symbols. This can be chosen with CPPTRACE_FULL_TRACE_WITH_LIBBACKTRACE. The auto config attempts to use this if it is available. Full tracing with libbacktrace ignores CPPTRACE_HARD_MAX_FRAMES.

<stacktrace> can of course also generate a full trace, if you're using >=C++23 and your compiler supports it. This is controlled by CPPTRACE_FULL_TRACE_WITH_LIBBACKTRACE. The cmake script will attempt to auto configure to this if possible. CPPTRACE_HARD_MAX_FRAMES is ignored.

More?

There are plenty more libraries that can be used for unwinding, parsing debug information, and demangling. In the future more back-ends can be added. Ideally this library can "just work" on systems, without additional installation work.

Summary of Library Configurations

Summary of all library configuration options:

Back-ends:

• CPPTRACE_FULL_TRACE_WITH_LIBBACKTRACE
• CPPTRACE_FULL_TRACE_WITH_STACKTRACE
• CPPTRACE_GET_SYMBOLS_WITH_LIBBACKTRACE
• CPPTRACE_GET_SYMBOLS_WITH_LIBDL
• CPPTRACE_GET_SYMBOLS_WITH_ADDR2LINE
• CPPTRACE_GET_SYMBOLS_WITH_DBGHELP
• CPPTRACE_GET_SYMBOLS_WITH_NOTHING
• CPPTRACE_UNWIND_WITH_UNWIND
• CPPTRACE_UNWIND_WITH_EXECINFO
• CPPTRACE_UNWIND_WITH_WINAPI
• CPPTRACE_UNWIND_WITH_NOTHING
• CPPTRACE_DEMANGLE_WITH_CXXABI
• CPPTRACE_DEMANGLE_WITH_NOTHING

General:

• CPPTRACE_BACKTRACE_PATH: Path to libbacktrace backtrace.h, needed when compiling with clang
• CPPTRACE_HARD_MAX_FRAMES: Some back-ends write to a fixed-size buffer. This is the size of that buffer. Default is 100.

Testing:

• CPPTRACE_BUILD_TEST Build a small test program
• CPPTRACE_BUILD_DEMO Build a small demo program
• CPPTRACE_BUILD_TEST_RDYNAMIC Use -rdynamic when compiling the test program
• CPPTRACE_BUILD_SPEEDTEST Build a small speed test program
• CPPTRACE_BUILD_SPEEDTEST_DWARF4
• CPPTRACE_BUILD_SPEEDTEST_DWARF5

Testing Methodology

Cpptrace currently uses integration and functional testing, building and running under every combination of back-end options. The implementation is based on github actions matrices and driven by python scripts located in the ci/ folder. Testing used to be done by github actions matrices directly, however, launching hundreds of two second jobs was extremely inefficient. Test outputs are compared against expected outputs located in test/expected/. Stack trace addresses may point to the address after an instruction depending on the unwinding back-end, and the python script will check for an exact or near-match accordingly.

License

The library is under the MIT license.