[c++] How to enable core dump in my Linux C++ program

My program is written in C++. compiled with gcc, using -g3 -O0 -ggdb flags. When it crashes, I want to open its core dump. Does it create core dump file, or I need to do something to enable core dump creation, in the program itself, or on computer where it is executed? Where this file is created, and what is its name?

This question is related to c++ linux crash-dumps

The answer is


You need to set ulimit -c. If you have 0 for this parameter a coredump file is not created. So do this: ulimit -c unlimited and check if everything is correct ulimit -a. The coredump file is created when an application has done for example something inappropriate. The name of the file on my system is core.<process-pid-here>.


You can do it this way inside a program:

#include <sys/resource.h>

// core dumps may be disallowed by parent of this process; change that
struct rlimit core_limits;
core_limits.rlim_cur = core_limits.rlim_max = RLIM_INFINITY;
setrlimit(RLIMIT_CORE, &core_limits);

By default many profiles are defaulted to 0 core file size because the average user doesn't know what to do with them.

Try ulimit -c unlimited before running your program.