ltrace - A library call tracer

ltrace [-CdfhiLrStttV] [-a column] [-e expr] [-l filename] [-n nr] [-o filename] [-p pid] ... [-s strsize] [-u username] [--align=column] [--debug] [--demangle] [--help] [--indent=nr] [--library=filename] [--output=filename] [--version] [command [arg ...]]

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).

-a, --align column

Align return values in a secific column (default column is 5/8 of screen width).

-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 prepended by the system, this makes C++ function names readable.

-d, --debug

Increase the debugging level. Use more (ie. =dd ) for greater debugging information.

-e expr

A qualifying expression which modifies which events to trace. The format of the expression is:

[!]value1[,value2]...

where the values are the functions to trace. Using an exclamation mark negates the set of values. For example -e printf means to trace only the printf library call. By contrast, -e !printf means to trace every library call except printf.

Note that some shells use the exclamation point for history expansion; even inside quoted arguments. If so, you must escape the exclamation point with a backslash.

-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 as soon as its pid is known.

-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 filename

Display only the symbols included in the library filename. Up to 20 library names can be specified with several instances of this option.

-L

DON'T display library calls (use it with the -S option).

-n, --indent nr

Indent trace output by nr number of spaces for each new nested call. Using this option makes the program flow visualization easy to follow.

-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.

-r

Print a relative timestamp with each line of the trace. This records the time difference between the beginning of successive 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.

-V, --version

Show the version number of ltrace and exit.

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

Manual page and documentation are not very up-to-date.

Option -f sometimes fails to trace some children.

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

Only ELF32 binaries are supported.

If you like to report a bug, send a notice to the author, or use the bug(1) program if you are under the Debian GNU/Linux distribution.

/etc/ltrace.conf

System configuration file

~/.ltrace.conf

Personal config file, overrides /etc/ltrace.conf

Juan Cespedes <cespedes@debian.org>

strace(1), ptrace(2)