Programming ToolsJamesRaynardContributed by MurrayStokelySynopsisThis chapter is an introduction to using some of the
programming tools supplied with FreeBSD, although much of it
will be applicable to many other versions of &unix;. It does
not attempt to describe coding in any
detail. Most of the chapter assumes little or no previous
programming knowledge, although it is hoped that most
programmers will find something of value in it.IntroductionFreeBSD offers an excellent development environment.
Compilers for C and C++ and an assembler come with the basic
system, not to mention classic &unix; tools such as
sed and awk. If that is
not enough, there are many more compilers and interpreters in
the Ports collection. The following section, Introduction to
Programming, lists some of the available options.
FreeBSD is very compatible with standards such as
&posix; and ANSI C, as
well with its own BSD heritage, so it is possible to write
applications that will compile and run with little or no
modification on a wide range of platforms.However, all this power can be rather overwhelming at first
if you have never written programs on a &unix; platform before.
This document aims to help you get up and running, without
getting too deeply into more advanced topics. The intention is
that this document should give you enough of the basics to be
able to make some sense of the documentation.Most of the document requires little or no knowledge of
programming, although it does assume a basic competence with
using &unix; and a willingness to learn!Introduction to ProgrammingA program is a set of instructions that tell the computer to
do various things; sometimes the instruction it has to perform
depends on what happened when it performed a previous
instruction. This section gives an overview of the two main
ways in which you can give these instructions, or
commands as they are usually called. One way
uses an interpreter, the other a
compiler. As human languages are too
difficult for a computer to understand in an unambiguous way,
commands are usually written in one or other languages specially
designed for the purpose.InterpretersWith an interpreter, the language comes as an environment,
where you type in commands at a prompt and the environment
executes them for you. For more complicated programs, you can
type the commands into a file and get the interpreter to load
the file and execute the commands in it. If anything goes
wrong, many interpreters will drop you into a debugger to help
you track down the problem.The advantage of this is that you can see the results of
your commands immediately, and mistakes can be corrected
readily. The biggest disadvantage comes when you want to
share your programs with someone. They must have the same
interpreter, or you must have some way of giving it to them,
and they need to understand how to use it. Also users may not
appreciate being thrown into a debugger if they press the
wrong key! From a performance point of view, interpreters can
use up a lot of memory, and generally do not generate code as
efficiently as compilers.In my opinion, interpreted languages are the best way to
start if you have not done any programming before. This kind
of environment is typically found with languages like Lisp,
Smalltalk, Perl and Basic. It could also be argued that the
&unix; shell (sh, csh)
is itself an interpreter, and many people do in fact write
shell scripts to help with various
housekeeping tasks on their machine. Indeed,
part of the original &unix; philosophy was to provide lots of
small utility programs that could be linked together in shell
scripts to perform useful tasks.Interpreters Available with FreeBSDHere is a list of interpreters that are available from the
&os; Ports Collection, with a brief discussion of some of the
more popular interpreted languages.Instructions on how to get and install applications from
the Ports Collection can be found in the Ports
section of the handbook.BASICShort for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic
Instruction Code. Developed in the 1950s for teaching
University students to program and provided with every
self-respecting personal computer in the 1980s,
BASIC has been the first programming
language for many programmers. It is also the
foundation for Visual Basic.The Bywater Basic Interpreter can be found in the
Ports Collection as lang/bwbasic and
the Phil Cockroft's Basic Interpreter (formerly Rabbit
Basic) is available as
lang/pbasic.LispA language that was developed in the late 1950s as
an alternative to the number-crunching
languages that were popular at the time. Instead of
being based on numbers, Lisp is based on lists; in fact,
the name is short for List Processing.
It is very popular in AI (Artificial
Intelligence) circles.Lisp is an extremely powerful and sophisticated
language, but can be rather large and unwieldy.Various implementations of Lisp that can run on
&unix; systems are available in the Ports Collection for
&os;. GNU Common Lisp can be found as
lang/gcl. CLISP by Bruno Haible and
Michael Stoll is available as
lang/clisp. For CMUCL, which
includes a highly-optimizing compiler too, or simpler
Lisp implementations like SLisp, which implements most
of the Common Lisp constructs in a few hundred lines of
C code, lang/cmucl and
lang/slisp are available
respectively.PerlVery popular with system administrators for writing
scripts; also often used on World Wide Web servers for
writing CGI scripts.Perl is available in the Ports Collection as
lang/perl5.24 for all
&os; releases.SchemeA dialect of Lisp that is rather more compact and
cleaner than Common Lisp. Popular in Universities as it
is simple enough to teach to undergraduates as a first
language, while it has a high enough level of
abstraction to be used in research work.Scheme is available from the Ports Collection as
lang/elk for the
Elk Scheme Interpreter. The MIT Scheme Interpreter
can be found in
lang/mit-scheme
and the SCM Scheme Interpreter in
lang/scm.IconIcon is a high-level language with extensive
facilities for processing strings and structures.
The version of Icon for &os; can be found in the
Ports Collection as
lang/icon.LogoLogo is a language that is easy to learn, and has
been used as an introductory programming language in
various courses. It is an excellent tool to work with
when teaching programming to smaller age groups, as it
makes creation of elaborate geometric shapes an easy
task.The latest version of Logo for &os; is available
from the Ports Collection in
lang/logo.PythonPython is an Object-Oriented, interpreted language.
Its advocates argue that it is one of the best languages
to start programming with, since it is relatively easy
to start with, but is not limited in comparison to other
popular interpreted languages that are used for the
development of large, complex applications (Perl and Tcl
are two other languages that are popular for such
tasks).The latest version of Python is available from the
Ports Collection in
lang/python.RubyRuby is an interpreter, pure object-oriented
programming language. It has become widely popular
because of its easy to understand syntax, flexibility
when writing code, and the ability to easily develop and
maintain large, complex programs.Ruby is available from the Ports Collection as
lang/ruby25.Tcl and TkTcl is an embeddable, interpreted language, that has
become widely used and became popular mostly because of
its portability to many platforms. It can be used both
for quickly writing small, prototype applications, or
(when combined with Tk, a GUI toolkit) fully-fledged,
featureful programs.Various versions of Tcl are available as ports for
&os;. The latest version, Tcl 8.5, can be found in
lang/tcl87.CompilersCompilers are rather different. First of all, you write
your code in a file (or files) using an editor. You then run
the compiler and see if it accepts your program. If it did
not compile, grit your teeth and go back to the editor; if it
did compile and gave you a program, you can run it either at a
shell command prompt or in a debugger to see if it works
properly.If you run it in the shell, you may
get a core dump.Obviously, this is not quite as direct as using an
interpreter. However it allows you to do a lot of things
which are very difficult or even impossible with an
interpreter, such as writing code which interacts closely with
the operating system—or even writing your own operating
system! It is also useful if you need to write very efficient
code, as the compiler can take its time and optimize the code,
which would not be acceptable in an interpreter. Moreover,
distributing a program written for a compiler is usually more
straightforward than one written for an interpreter—you
can just give them a copy of the executable, assuming they
have the same operating system as you.As the edit-compile-run-debug cycle is rather tedious when
using separate programs, many commercial compiler makers have
produced Integrated Development Environments
(IDEs for short). FreeBSD does not include
an IDE in the base system, but
devel/kdevelop is available in the Ports
Collection and many use Emacs for
this purpose. Using Emacs as an
IDE is discussed in .Compiling with ccThis section deals with the gcc
and clang compilers for C and C++,
since they come with the &os; base system. Starting with
&os; 10.X clang is installed as
cc. The details of producing a program with
an interpreter vary considerably between interpreters, and are
usually well covered in the documentation and on-line help for
the interpreter.Once you have written your masterpiece, the next step is to
convert it into something that will (hopefully!) run on FreeBSD.
This usually involves several steps, each of which is done by a
separate program.Pre-process your source code to remove comments and do
other tricks like expanding macros in C.Check the syntax of your code to see if you have obeyed
the rules of the language. If you have not, it will
complain!Convert the source code into assembly
language—this is very close to machine code, but still
understandable by humans. Allegedly.Convert the assembly language into machine
code—yep, we are talking bits and bytes, ones and
zeros here.Check that you have used things like functions and
global variables in a consistent way. For example, if you
have called a non-existent function, it will
complain.If you are trying to produce an executable from several
source code files, work out how to fit them all
together.Work out how to produce something that the system's
run-time loader will be able to load into memory and
run.Finally, write the executable on the filesystem.The word compiling is often used to
refer to just steps 1 to 4—the others are referred to as
linking. Sometimes step 1 is referred to
as pre-processing and steps 3-4 as
assembling.Fortunately, almost all this detail is hidden from you, as
cc is a front end that manages calling all
these programs with the right arguments for you; simply
typing&prompt.user; cc foobar.cwill cause foobar.c to be compiled by
all the steps above. If you have more than one file to compile,
just do something like&prompt.user; cc foo.c bar.cNote that the syntax checking is just that—checking
the syntax. It will not check for any logical mistakes you may
have made, like putting the program into an infinite loop, or
using a bubble sort when you meant to use a binary
sort.In case you did not know, a binary sort is
an efficient way of sorting things into order and a bubble
sort is not.There are lots and lots of options for
cc, which are all in the manual page. Here
are a few of the most important ones, with examples of how to
use them.The output name of the file. If you do not use this
option, cc will produce an executable
called a.out.The
reasons for this are buried in the mists of
history.&prompt.user; cc foobar.cexecutable is a.out
&prompt.user; cc -o foobar foobar.cexecutable is foobarJust compile the file, do not link it. Useful for toy
programs where you just want to check the syntax, or if
you are using a Makefile.&prompt.user; cc -c foobar.cThis will produce an object
file (not an executable) called
foobar.o. This can be linked
together with other object files into an
executable.Create a debug version of the executable. This makes
the compiler put information into the executable about
which line of which source file corresponds to which
function call. A debugger can use this information to
show the source code as you step through the program,
which is very useful; the
disadvantage is that all this extra information makes the
program much bigger. Normally, you compile with
while you are developing a program and
then compile a release version without
when you are satisfied it works
properly.&prompt.user; cc -g foobar.cThis will produce a debug version of the
program.
Note, we did not use the flag
to specify the executable name, so we will get an
executable called a.out.
Producing a debug version called
foobar is left as an exercise for
the reader!Create an optimized version of the executable. The
compiler performs various clever tricks to try to produce
an executable that runs faster than normal. You can add a
number after the to specify a higher
level of optimization, but this often exposes bugs in the
compiler's optimizer.&prompt.user; cc -O -o foobar foobar.cThis will produce an optimized version of
foobar.The following three flags will force cc
to check that your code complies to the relevant international
standard, often referred to as the ANSI
standard, though strictly speaking it is an
ISO standard.Enable all the warnings which the authors of
cc believe are worthwhile. Despite the
name, it will not enable all the warnings
cc is capable of.Turn off most, but not all, of the
non-ANSI C features provided by
cc. Despite the name, it does not
guarantee strictly that your code will comply to the
standard.Turn off allcc's non-ANSI C
features.Without these flags, cc will allow you to
use some of its non-standard extensions to the standard. Some
of these are very useful, but will not work with other
compilers—in fact, one of the main aims of the standard is
to allow people to write code that will work with any compiler
on any system. This is known as portable
code.Generally, you should try to make your code as portable as
possible, as otherwise you may have to completely rewrite the
program later to get it to work somewhere else—and who
knows what you may be using in a few years time?&prompt.user; cc -Wall -ansi -pedantic -o foobar foobar.cThis will produce an executable foobar
after checking foobar.c for standard
compliance.Specify a function library to be used at link
time.The most common example of this is when compiling a
program that uses some of the mathematical functions in C.
Unlike most other platforms, these are in a separate
library from the standard C one and you have to tell the
compiler to add it.The rule is that if the library is called
libsomething.a,
you give cc the argument
.
For example, the math library is
libm.a, so you give
cc the argument .
A common gotcha with the math library is
that it has to be the last library on the command
line.&prompt.user; cc -o foobar foobar.c -lmThis will link the math library functions into
foobar.If you are compiling C++ code, use
c++. c++ can also
be invoked as clang++ on &os;.&prompt.user; c++ -o foobar foobar.ccThis will both produce an executable
foobar from the C++ source file
foobar.cc.Common cc Queries and ProblemsI am trying to write a program which uses the
sin() function and I get an error
like this. What does it mean?/var/tmp/cc0143941.o: Undefined symbol `_sin' referenced from text segmentWhen using mathematical functions like
sin(), you have to tell
cc to link in the math library, like
so:&prompt.user; cc -o foobar foobar.c -lmAll right, I wrote this simple program to practice
using . All it does is raise 2.1 to
the power of 6.#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
float f;
f = pow(2.1, 6);
printf("2.1 ^ 6 = %f\n", f);
return 0;
}and I compiled it as:&prompt.user; cc temp.c -lmlike you said I should, but I get this when I run
it:&prompt.user; ./a.out
2.1 ^ 6 = 1023.000000This is not the right answer!
What is going on?When the compiler sees you call a function, it
checks if it has already seen a prototype for it. If it
has not, it assumes the function returns an
int, which is definitely not what you want
here.So how do I fix this?The prototypes for the mathematical functions are in
math.h. If you include this file,
the compiler will be able to find the prototype and it
will stop doing strange things to your
calculation!#include <math.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
...After recompiling it as you did before, run
it:&prompt.user; ./a.out
2.1 ^ 6 = 85.766121If you are using any of the mathematical functions,
always include
math.h and remember to link in the
math library.I compiled a file called
foobar.c and I cannot find an
executable called foobar. Where
has it gone?Remember, cc will call the
executable a.out unless you tell it
differently. Use the
option:&prompt.user; cc -o foobar foobar.cOK, I have an executable called
foobar, I can see it when I run
ls, but when I type in
foobar at the command prompt it tells
me there is no such file. Why can it not find
it?Unlike &ms-dos;, &unix; does not look in the current
directory when it is trying to find out which executable
you want it to run, unless you tell it to. Type
./foobar, which means run the
file called foobar in the current
directory.I called my executable test,
but nothing happens when I run it. What is going
on?Most &unix; systems have a program called
test in /usr/bin
and the shell is picking that one up before it gets to
checking the current directory. Either type:&prompt.user; ./testor choose a better name for your program!I compiled my program and it seemed to run all right
at first, then there was an error and it said something
about core dumped. What does
that mean?The name core dump dates back
to the very early days of &unix;, when the machines used
core memory for storing data. Basically, if the program
failed under certain conditions, the system would write
the contents of core memory to disk in a file called
core, which the programmer could
then pore over to find out what went wrong.Fascinating stuff, but what I am supposed to do
now?Use a debugger to analyze the core (see
).When my program dumped core, it said something about
a segmentation fault. What is
that?This basically means that your program tried to
perform some sort of illegal operation on memory; &unix;
is designed to protect the operating system and other
programs from rogue programs.Common causes for this are:Trying to write to a NULL
pointer, egchar *foo = NULL;
strcpy(foo, "bang!");Using a pointer that has not been initialized,
egchar *foo;
strcpy(foo, "bang!");The pointer will have some random value that,
with luck, will point into an area of memory that is
not available to your program and the kernel will
kill your program before it can do any damage. If
you are unlucky, it will point somewhere inside your
own program and corrupt one of your data structures,
causing the program to fail mysteriously.Trying to access past the end of an array,
egint bar[20];
bar[27] = 6;Trying to store something in read-only memory,
egchar *foo = "My string";
strcpy(foo, "bang!");&unix; compilers often put string literals like
"My string" into read-only areas
of memory.Doing naughty things with
malloc() and
free(), egchar bar[80];
free(bar);orchar *foo = malloc(27);
free(foo);
free(foo);Making one of these mistakes will not always lead to
an error, but they are always bad practice. Some
systems and compilers are more tolerant than others,
which is why programs that ran well on one system can
crash when you try them on an another.Sometimes when I get a core dump it says
bus error. It says in my &unix;
book that this means a hardware problem, but the
computer still seems to be working. Is this
true?No, fortunately not (unless of course you really do
have a hardware problem…). This is usually
another way of saying that you accessed memory in a way
you should not have.This dumping core business sounds as though it could
be quite useful, if I can make it happen when I want to.
Can I do this, or do I have to wait until there is an
error?Yes, just go to another console or xterm, do&prompt.user; psto find out the process ID of your program, and
do&prompt.user; kill -ABRT pidwhere
pid is
the process ID you looked up.This is useful if your program has got stuck in an
infinite loop, for instance. If your program happens to
trap SIGABRT, there are several other
signals which have a similar effect.Alternatively, you can create a core dump from
inside your program, by calling the
abort() function. See the manual
page of &man.abort.3; to learn more.If you want to create a core dump from outside your
program, but do not want the process to terminate, you
can use the gcore program. See the
manual page of &man.gcore.1; for more
information.MakeWhat is make?When you are working on a simple program with only one or
two source files, typing in&prompt.user; cc file1.c file2.cis not too bad, but it quickly becomes very tedious when
there are several files—and it can take a while to
compile, too.One way to get around this is to use object files and only
recompile the source file if the source code has changed. So
we could have something like:&prompt.user; cc file1.o file2.o … file37.c …if we had changed file37.c, but not
any of the others, since the last time we compiled. This may
speed up the compilation quite a bit, but does not solve the
typing problem.Or we could write a shell script to solve the typing
problem, but it would have to re-compile everything, making it
very inefficient on a large project.What happens if we have hundreds of source files lying
about? What if we are working in a team with other people who
forget to tell us when they have changed one of their source
files that we use?Perhaps we could put the two solutions together and write
something like a shell script that would contain some kind of
magic rule saying when a source file needs compiling. Now all
we need now is a program that can understand these rules, as
it is a bit too complicated for the shell.This program is called make. It reads
in a file, called a makefile, that
tells it how different files depend on each other, and works
out which files need to be re-compiled and which ones do not.
For example, a rule could say something like if
fromboz.o is older than
fromboz.c, that means someone must have
changed fromboz.c, so it needs to be
re-compiled. The makefile also has rules telling
make how to re-compile the source file,
making it a much more powerful tool.Makefiles are typically kept in the same directory as the
source they apply to, and can be called
makefile, Makefile
or MAKEFILE. Most programmers use the
name Makefile, as this puts it near the
top of a directory listing, where it can easily be
seen.They do not use the
MAKEFILE form as block capitals are
often used for documentation files like
README.Example of Using makeHere is a very simple make file:foo: foo.c
cc -o foo foo.cIt consists of two lines, a dependency line and a creation
line.The dependency line here consists of the name of the
program (known as the target), followed
by a colon, then whitespace, then the name of the source file.
When make reads this line, it looks to see
if foo exists; if it exists, it compares
the time foo was last modified to the
time foo.c was last modified. If
foo does not exist, or is older than
foo.c, it then looks at the creation line
to find out what to do. In other words, this is the rule for
working out when foo.c needs to be
re-compiled.The creation line starts with a tab (press
tab) and then the command you would type to
create foo if you were doing it at a
command prompt. If foo is out of date,
or does not exist, make then executes this
command to create it. In other words, this is the rule which
tells make how to re-compile
foo.c.So, when you type make, it will
make sure that foo is up to date with
respect to your latest changes to foo.c.
This principle can be extended to
Makefiles with hundreds of
targets—in fact, on FreeBSD, it is possible to compile
the entire operating system just by typing make
world in the appropriate directory!Another useful property of makefiles is that the targets
do not have to be programs. For instance, we could have a
make file that looks like this:foo: foo.c
cc -o foo foo.c
install:
cp foo /home/meWe can tell make which target we want to make by
typing:&prompt.user; make targetmake will then only look at that target
and ignore any others. For example, if we type
make foo with the makefile above, make
will ignore the install
target.If we just type make on its own,
make will always look at the first target and then stop
without looking at any others. So if we typed
make here, it will just go to the
foo target, re-compile
foo if necessary, and then stop without
going on to the install
target.Notice that the install target
does not actually depend on anything! This means that the
command on the following line is always executed when we try
to make that target by typing make
install. In this case, it will copy
foo into the user's home directory. This
is often used by application makefiles, so that the
application can be installed in the correct directory when it
has been correctly compiled.This is a slightly confusing subject to try to explain.
If you do not quite understand how make
works, the best thing to do is to write a simple program like
hello world and a make file like the one above
and experiment. Then progress to using more than one source
file, or having the source file include a header file.
touch is very useful here—it changes
the date on a file without you having to edit it.Make and include-filesC code often starts with a list of files to include, for
example stdio.h. Some of these files are system-include
files, some of them are from the project you are now working
on:#include <stdio.h>
#include "foo.h"
int main(....To make sure that this file is recompiled the moment
foo.h is changed, you have to add it in
your Makefile:foo: foo.c foo.hThe moment your project is getting bigger and you have
more and more own include-files to maintain, it will be a pain
to keep track of all include files and the files which are
depending on it. If you change an include-file but forget to
recompile all the files which are depending on it, the results
will be devastating. clang has an option
to analyze your files and to produce a list of include-files
and their dependencies: .If you add this to your Makefile:depend:
cc -E -MM *.c > .dependand run make depend, the file
.depend will appear with a list of
object-files, C-files and the include-files:foo.o: foo.c foo.hIf you change foo.h, next time you
run make all files depending on
foo.h will be recompiled.Do not forget to run make depend each
time you add an include-file to one of your files.FreeBSD MakefilesMakefiles can be rather complicated to write.
Fortunately, BSD-based systems like FreeBSD come with some
very powerful ones as part of the system. One very good
example of this is the FreeBSD ports system. Here is the
essential part of a typical ports
Makefile:MASTER_SITES= ftp://freefall.cdrom.com/pub/FreeBSD/LOCAL_PORTS/
DISTFILES= scheme-microcode+dist-7.3-freebsd.tgz
.include <bsd.port.mk>Now, if we go to the directory for this port and type
make, the following happens:A check is made to see if the source code for this
port is already on the system.If it is not, an FTP connection to the URL in
MASTER_SITES is set up to download the
source.The checksum for the source is calculated and compared
it with one for a known, good, copy of the source. This
is to make sure that the source was not corrupted while in
transit.Any changes required to make the source work on
FreeBSD are applied—this is known as
patching.Any special configuration needed for the source is
done. (Many &unix; program distributions try to work out
which version of &unix; they are being compiled on and
which optional &unix; features are present—this is
where they are given the information in the FreeBSD ports
scenario).The source code for the program is compiled. In
effect, we change to the directory where the source was
unpacked and do make—the
program's own make file has the necessary information to
build the program.We now have a compiled version of the program. If we
wish, we can test it now; when we feel confident about the
program, we can type make install.
This will cause the program and any supporting files it
needs to be copied into the correct location; an entry is
also made into a package database, so
that the port can easily be uninstalled later if we change
our mind about it.Now I think you will agree that is rather impressive for a
four line script!The secret lies in the last line, which tells
make to look in the system makefile called
bsd.port.mk. It is easy to overlook this
line, but this is where all the clever stuff comes
from—someone has written a makefile that tells
make to do all the things above (plus a
couple of other things I did not mention, including handling
any errors that may occur) and anyone can get access to that
just by putting a single line in their own make file!If you want to have a look at these system makefiles, they
are in /usr/share/mk, but it is probably
best to wait until you have had a bit of practice with
makefiles, as they are very complicated (and if you do look at
them, make sure you have a flask of strong coffee
handy!)More Advanced Uses of makeMake is a very powerful tool, and can
do much more than the simple example above shows.
Unfortunately, there are several different versions of
make, and they all differ considerably.
The best way to learn what they can do is probably to read the
documentation—hopefully this introduction will have
given you a base from which you can do this.The version of make that comes with FreeBSD is the
Berkeley make; there is a tutorial
for it in /usr/share/doc/psd/12.make. To
view it, do&prompt.user; zmore paper.ascii.gzin that directory.Many applications in the ports use GNU
make, which has a very good set of
info pages. If you have installed any of these
ports, GNU make will automatically
have been installed as gmake. It is also
available as a port and package in its own right.To view the info pages for GNU
make, you will have to edit
dir in the
/usr/local/info directory to add an entry
for it. This involves adding a line like * Make: (make). The GNU Make utility.to the file. Once you have done this, you can type
info and then select
make from the menu (or in
Emacs, do C-h
i).DebuggingIntroduction to Available DebuggersUsing a debugger allows running the program under more
controlled circumstances. Typically, it is possible to step
through the program a line at a time, inspect the value of
variables, change them, tell the debugger to run up to a
certain point and then stop, and so on. It is also possible
to attach to a program that is already running, or load a core
file to investigate why the program crashed. It is even
possible to debug the kernel, though that is a little trickier
than the user applications we will be discussing in this
section.This section is intended to be a quick introduction to
using debuggers and does not cover specialized topics such as
debugging the kernel. For more information about that, refer
to .The standard debugger supplied with
&os; &rel121.current; is called lldb
(LLVM debugger). As it is part of
the standard installation for that release, there is no need
to do anything special to use it. It has good command help,
accessible via the help command, as
well as a web
tutorial and documentation.The lldb command is available for
&os; &rel1.current; from
ports or packages as
devel/llvm. This will install the
default version of lldb (currently 9.0).The other debugger available with &os; is called
gdb (GNU
debugger). Unlike lldb, it is not installed
by default on &os; &rel121.current;; to use it, install
devel/gdb from ports or packages. The
version installed by default on &os; &rel1.current; is
old; instead, install devel/gdb there as
well. It has quite good on-line help, as well as a set of
info pages.Which one to use is largely a matter of taste. If
familiar with one only, use that one. People familiar
with neither or both but wanting to use one from inside
Emacs will need to use
gdb as lldb is
unsupported by Emacs. Otherwise,
try both and see which one you prefer.Using lldbStarting lldbStart up lldb by typing&prompt.user; lldb -- prognameRunning a Program with lldbCompile the program with to get the
most out of using lldb. It will work
without, but will only display the name of the function
currently running, instead of the source code. If it
displays a line like:Breakpoint 1: where = temp`main, address = …(without an indication of source code filename and line
number) when setting a breakpoint, this means that the
program was not compiled with .Most lldb commands have shorter
forms that can be used instead. The longer forms are
used here for clarity.At the lldb prompt, type
breakpoint set -n main. This will
tell the debugger not to display the preliminary set-up code
in the program being run and to stop execution at the
beginning of the program's code. Now type
process launch to actually start the
program— it will start at the beginning of the set-up
code and then get stopped by the debugger when it calls
main().To step through the program a line at a time, type
thread step-over. When the program
gets to a function call, step into it by typing
thread step-in. Once in a function
call, return from it by typing
thread step-out or use
up and down to
take a quick look at the caller.Here is a simple example of how to spot a mistake in a
program with lldb. This is our program
(with a deliberate mistake):#include <stdio.h>
int bazz(int anint);
main() {
int i;
printf("This is my program\n");
bazz(i);
return 0;
}
int bazz(int anint) {
printf("You gave me %d\n", anint);
return anint;
}This program sets i to be
5 and passes it to a function
bazz() which prints out the number we
gave it.Compiling and running the program displays&prompt.user; cc -g -o temp temp.c
&prompt.user; ./temp
This is my program
anint = -5360That is not what was expected! Time to see what is going
on!&prompt.user; lldb -- temp
(lldb) target create "temp"
Current executable set to 'temp' (x86_64).
(lldb) breakpoint set -n mainSkip the set-up code
Breakpoint 1: where = temp`main + 15 at temp.c:8:2, address = 0x00000000002012ef lldb puts breakpoint at main()
(lldb) process launchRun as far as main()
Process 9992 launching
Process 9992 launched: '/home/pauamma/tmp/temp' (x86_64) Program starts running
Process 9992 stopped
* thread #1, name = 'temp', stop reason = breakpoint 1.1 lldb stops at main()
frame #0: 0x00000000002012ef temp`main at temp.c:8:2
5 main() {
6 int i;
7
-> 8 printf("This is my program\n"); Indicates the line where it stopped
9 bazz(i);
10 return 0;
11 }
(lldb) thread step-overGo to next line
This is my program Program prints out
Process 9992 stopped
* thread #1, name = 'temp', stop reason = step over
frame #0: 0x0000000000201300 temp`main at temp.c:9:7
6 int i;
7
8 printf("This is my program\n");
-> 9 bazz(i);
10 return 0;
11 }
12
(lldb) thread step-instep into bazz()
Process 9992 stopped
* thread #1, name = 'temp', stop reason = step in
frame #0: 0x000000000020132b temp`bazz(anint=-5360) at temp.c:14:29 lldb displays stack frame
11 }
12
13 int bazz(int anint) {
-> 14 printf("You gave me %d\n", anint);
15 return anint;
16 }
(lldb)Hang on a minute! How did anint get to
be -5360? Was it not set to
5 in main()? Let us
move up to main() and have a
look.(lldb) upMove up call stack
frame #1: 0x000000000020130b temp`main at temp.c:9:2 lldb displays stack frame
6 int i;
7
8 printf("This is my program\n");
-> 9 bazz(i);
10 return 0;
11 }
12
(lldb) frame variable iShow us the value of i
(int) i = -5360 lldb displays -5360Oh dear! Looking at the code, we forgot to initialize
i. We meant to put…
main() {
int i;
i = 5;
printf("This is my program\n");
…but we left the i=5; line out. As we
did not initialize i, it had whatever
number happened to be in that area of memory when the
program ran, which in this case happened to be
-5360.The lldb command displays the stack
frame every time we go into or out of a function, even if
we are using up and
down to move around the call stack.
This shows the name of the function and the values of its
arguments, which helps us keep track of where we are and
what is going on. (The stack is a storage area where the
program stores information about the arguments passed to
functions and where to go when it returns from a function
call.)Examining a Core File with lldbA core file is basically a file which contains the
complete state of the process when it crashed. In
the good old days, programmers had to print
out hex listings of core files and sweat over machine code
manuals, but now life is a bit easier. Incidentally, under
&os; and other 4.4BSD systems, a core file is called
progname.core
instead of just core, to make it
clearer which program a core file belongs to.To examine a core file, specify the name of the core
file in addition to the program itself. Instead of starting
up lldb in the usual way, type
lldb -c progname.core
-- prognameThe debugger will display something like this:&prompt.user; lldb -c progname.core -- progname
(lldb) target create "progname" --core "progname.core"
Core file '/home/pauamma/tmp/progname.core' (x86_64) was loaded.
(lldb)In this case, the program was called
progname, so
the core file is called
progname.core.
The debugger does not display why the program crashed or
where. For this, use
thread backtrace all. This will also
show how the function where the program dumped core was
called.(lldb) thread backtrace all
* thread #1, name = 'progname', stop reason = signal SIGSEGV
* frame #0: 0x0000000000201347 progname`bazz(anint=5) at temp2.c:17:10
frame #1: 0x0000000000201312 progname`main at temp2.c:10:2
frame #2: 0x000000000020110f progname`_start(ap=<unavailable>, cleanup=<unavailable>) at crt1.c:76:7
(lldb)SIGSEGV indicates that the program
tried to access memory (run code or read/write data usually)
at a location that does not belong to it, but does not give
any specifics. For that, look at the source code at line 10
of file temp2.c, in bazz(). The
backtrace also says that in this case,
bazz() was called from
main().Attaching to a Running Program with lldbOne of the neatest features about
lldb is that it can attach to a program
that is already running. Of course, that requires
sufficient permissions to do so. A common problem is
stepping through a program that forks and wanting to trace
the child, but the debugger will only trace the
parent.To do that, start up another lldb,
use ps to find the process ID for the
child, and do(lldb) process attach -p pidin lldb, and then debug as
usual.For that to work well, the code that calls
fork to create the child needs to do
something like the following (courtesy of the
gdb info pages):…
if ((pid = fork()) < 0) /* _Always_ check this */
error();
else if (pid == 0) { /* child */
int PauseMode = 1;
while (PauseMode)
sleep(10); /* Wait until someone attaches to us */
…
} else { /* parent */
…Now all that is needed is to attach to the child, set
PauseMode to 0 with
expr PauseMode = 0 and wait
for the sleep() call to return.Using gdbStarting gdbStart up gdb by typing&prompt.user; gdb prognamealthough many people prefer to run it inside
Emacs. To do this, type:M-x gdb RET progname RETFinally, for those finding its text-based command-prompt
style off-putting, there is a graphical front-end for it
(devel/xxgdb) in the Ports
Collection.Running a Program with gdbCompile the program with
to get the most out of using
gdb. It will work without, but will
only display the name of the function currently running,
instead of the source code. A line like:… (no debugging symbols found) …when gdb starts up means that the
program was not compiled with .At the gdb prompt, type
break main. This will tell the
debugger to skip the preliminary set-up code in the program
being run and to stop execution at the beginning of the
program's code. Now type run to start
the program— it will start at the beginning of the
set-up code and then get stopped by the debugger when it calls
main().To step through the program a line at a time, press
n. When at a function call, step into it
by pressing s. Once in a function call,
return from it by pressing f, or use
up and down to take
a quick look at the caller.Here is a simple example of how to spot a mistake in a
program with gdb. This is our program
(with a deliberate mistake):#include <stdio.h>
int bazz(int anint);
main() {
int i;
printf("This is my program\n");
bazz(i);
return 0;
}
int bazz(int anint) {
printf("You gave me %d\n", anint);
return anint;
}This program sets i to be
5 and passes it to a function
bazz() which prints out the number we
gave it.Compiling and running the program displays&prompt.user; cc -g -o temp temp.c
&prompt.user; ./temp
This is my program
anint = 4231That was not what we expected! Time to see what is going
on!&prompt.user; gdb temp
GDB is free software and you are welcome to distribute copies of it
under certain conditions; type "show copying" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB; type "show warranty" for details.
GDB 4.13 (i386-unknown-freebsd), Copyright 1994 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
(gdb) break mainSkip the set-up code
Breakpoint 1 at 0x160f: file temp.c, line 9. gdb puts breakpoint at main()
(gdb) runRun as far as main()
Starting program: /home/james/tmp/temp Program starts running
Breakpoint 1, main () at temp.c:9 gdb stops at main()
(gdb) nGo to next line
This is my program Program prints out
(gdb) sstep into bazz()
bazz (anint=4231) at temp.c:17 gdb displays stack frame
(gdb)Hang on a minute! How did anint get to be
4231? Was it not set to
5 in main()? Let us
move up to main() and have a look.(gdb) upMove up call stack
#1 0x1625 in main () at temp.c:11 gdb displays stack frame
(gdb) p iShow us the value of i
$1 = 4231 gdb displays 4231Oh dear! Looking at the code, we forgot to initialize
i. We meant to put…
main() {
int i;
i = 5;
printf("This is my program\n");
…but we left the i=5; line out. As we
did not initialize i, it had whatever number
happened to be in that area of memory when the program ran,
which in this case happened to be
4231.The gdb command displays the stack
frame every time we go into or out of a function, even if we
are using up and down
to move around the call stack. This shows the name of the
function and the values of its arguments, which helps us
keep track of where we are and what is going on. (The stack
is a storage area where the program stores information about
the arguments passed to functions and where to go when it
returns from a function call.)Examining a Core File with gdbA core file is basically a file which contains the
complete state of the process when it crashed. In the
good old days, programmers had to print out hex
listings of core files and sweat over machine code manuals,
but now life is a bit easier. Incidentally, under &os; and
other 4.4BSD systems, a core file is called
progname.core
instead of just core, to make it clearer
which program a core file belongs to.To examine a core file, start up gdb in
the usual way. Instead of typing break or
run, type(gdb) core progname.coreIf the core file is not in the current directory, type
dir /path/to/core/file first.The debugger should display something like this:&prompt.user; gdb progname
GDB is free software and you are welcome to distribute copies of it
under certain conditions; type "show copying" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB; type "show warranty" for details.
GDB 4.13 (i386-unknown-freebsd), Copyright 1994 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
(gdb) core progname.core
Core was generated by `progname'.
Program terminated with signal 11, Segmentation fault.
Cannot access memory at address 0x7020796d.
#0 0x164a in bazz (anint=0x5) at temp.c:17
(gdb)In this case, the program was called
progname, so
the core file is called
progname.core.
We can see that the program crashed due to trying to access an
area in memory that was not available to it in a function
called bazz.Sometimes it is useful to be able to see how a function
was called, as the problem could have occurred a long way up
the call stack in a complex program. bt
causes gdb to print out a back-trace of the
call stack:(gdb) bt
#0 0x164a in bazz (anint=0x5) at temp.c:17
#1 0xefbfd888 in end ()
#2 0x162c in main () at temp.c:11
(gdb)The end() function is called when a
program crashes; in this case, the bazz()
function was called from main().Attaching to a Running Program with gdbOne of the neatest features about gdb
is that it can attach to a program that is already running.
Of course, that requires sufficient permissions to do
so. A common problem is stepping through a program that forks
and wanting to trace the child, but the debugger will only
trace the parent.To do that, start up another gdb,
use ps to find the process ID for the
child, and do(gdb) attach pidin gdb, and then debug as usual.For that to work well, the code that calls
fork to create the child needs to do
something like the following (courtesy of the
gdb info pages):…
if ((pid = fork()) < 0) /* _Always_ check this */
error();
else if (pid == 0) { /* child */
int PauseMode = 1;
while (PauseMode)
sleep(10); /* Wait until someone attaches to us */
…
} else { /* parent */
…Now all that is needed is to attach to the child, set
PauseMode to 0, and wait
for the sleep() call to return!Using Emacs as a Development EnvironmentEmacsEmacs is a highly customizable
editor—indeed, it has been customized to the point where
it is more like an operating system than an editor! Many
developers and sysadmins do in fact spend practically all
their time working inside Emacs, leaving it only to log
out.It is impossible even to summarize everything Emacs can do
here, but here are some of the features of interest to
developers:Very powerful editor, allowing search-and-replace on
both strings and regular expressions (patterns), jumping
to start/end of block expression, etc, etc.Pull-down menus and online help.Language-dependent syntax highlighting and
indentation.Completely customizable.You can compile and debug programs within
Emacs.On a compilation error, you can jump to the offending
line of source code.Friendly-ish front-end to the info
program used for reading GNU hypertext documentation,
including the documentation on Emacs itself.Friendly front-end to gdb, allowing
you to look at the source code as you step through your
program.And doubtless many more that have been overlooked.Emacs can be installed on &os; using
the editors/emacs
port.Once it is installed, start it up and do C-h
t to read an Emacs tutorial—that means hold
down control, press h, let
go of control, and then press
t. (Alternatively, you can use the mouse to
select Emacs Tutorial from the
Help menu.)Although Emacs does have menus, it is well worth learning
the key bindings, as it is much quicker when you are editing
something to press a couple of keys than to try to find the
mouse and then click on the right place. And, when you are
talking to seasoned Emacs users, you will find they often
casually throw around expressions like M-x
replace-s RET foo RET bar RET so it is
useful to know what they mean. And in any case, Emacs has far
too many useful functions for them to all fit on the menu
bars.Fortunately, it is quite easy to pick up the key-bindings,
as they are displayed next to the menu item. My advice is to
use the menu item for, say, opening a file until you
understand how it works and feel confident with it, then try
doing C-x C-f. When you are happy with that, move on to
another menu command.If you cannot remember what a particular combination of
keys does, select Describe Key from
the Help menu and type it in—Emacs
will tell you what it does. You can also use the
Command Apropos menu item to find
out all the commands which contain a particular word in them,
with the key binding next to it.By the way, the expression above means hold down the
Meta key, press x, release
the Meta key, type
replace-s (short for
replace-string—another feature of
Emacs is that you can abbreviate commands), press the
return key, type foo
(the string you want replaced), press the
return key, type bar (the string you want to
replace foo with) and press
return again. Emacs will then do the
search-and-replace operation you have just requested.If you are wondering what on earth Meta
is, it is a special key that many &unix; workstations have.
Unfortunately, PC's do not have one, so it is usually
alt (or if you are unlucky, the
escape key).Oh, and to get out of Emacs, do C-x C-c
(that means hold down the control key, press
x, press c and release the
control key). If you have any unsaved files
open, Emacs will ask you if you want to save them. (Ignore
the bit in the documentation where it says
C-z is the usual way to leave
Emacs—that leaves Emacs hanging around in the
background, and is only really useful if you are on a system
which does not have virtual terminals).Configuring EmacsEmacs does many wonderful things; some of them are built
in, some of them need to be configured.Instead of using a proprietary macro language for
configuration, Emacs uses a version of Lisp specially adapted
for editors, known as Emacs Lisp. Working with Emacs Lisp can
be quite helpful if you want to go on and learn something like
Common Lisp. Emacs Lisp has many features of Common Lisp,
although it is considerably smaller (and thus easier to
master).The best way to learn Emacs Lisp is to download the Emacs
TutorialHowever, there is no need to actually know any Lisp to get
started with configuring Emacs, as I have included a sample
.emacs, which should be enough to get you
started. Just copy it into your home directory and restart
Emacs if it is already running; it will read the commands from
the file and (hopefully) give you a useful basic setup.A Sample .emacsUnfortunately, there is far too much here to explain it in
detail; however there are one or two points worth
mentioning.Everything beginning with a ; is a
comment and is ignored by Emacs.In the first line, the
-*- Emacs-Lisp -*- is so that
we can edit .emacs itself within
Emacs and get all the fancy features for editing Emacs
Lisp. Emacs usually tries to guess this based on the
filename, and may not get it right for
.emacs.The tab key is bound to an
indentation function in some modes, so when you press the
tab key, it will indent the current line of code. If you
want to put a tab character in whatever you
are writing, hold the control key down
while you are pressing the tab
key.This file supports syntax highlighting for C, C++,
Perl, Lisp and Scheme, by guessing the language from the
filename.Emacs already has a pre-defined function called
next-error. In a compilation output
window, this allows you to move from one compilation error
to the next by doing M-n; we define a
complementary function,
previous-error, that allows you to go
to a previous error by doing M-p. The
nicest feature of all is that C-c C-c
will open up the source file in which the error occurred
and jump to the appropriate line.We enable Emacs's ability to act as a server, so that
if you are doing something outside Emacs and you want to
edit a file, you can just type in&prompt.user; emacsclient filenameand then you can edit the file in your
Emacs!Many Emacs users set their
EDITOR environment to
emacsclient so this happens every
time they need to edit a
file.A Sample .emacs;; -*-Emacs-Lisp-*-
;; This file is designed to be re-evaled; use the variable first-time
;; to avoid any problems with this.
(defvar first-time t
"Flag signifying this is the first time that .emacs has been evaled")
;; Meta
(global-set-key "\M- " 'set-mark-command)
(global-set-key "\M-\C-h" 'backward-kill-word)
(global-set-key "\M-\C-r" 'query-replace)
(global-set-key "\M-r" 'replace-string)
(global-set-key "\M-g" 'goto-line)
(global-set-key "\M-h" 'help-command)
;; Function keys
(global-set-key [f1] 'manual-entry)
(global-set-key [f2] 'info)
(global-set-key [f3] 'repeat-complex-command)
(global-set-key [f4] 'advertised-undo)
(global-set-key [f5] 'eval-current-buffer)
(global-set-key [f6] 'buffer-menu)
(global-set-key [f7] 'other-window)
(global-set-key [f8] 'find-file)
(global-set-key [f9] 'save-buffer)
(global-set-key [f10] 'next-error)
(global-set-key [f11] 'compile)
(global-set-key [f12] 'grep)
(global-set-key [C-f1] 'compile)
(global-set-key [C-f2] 'grep)
(global-set-key [C-f3] 'next-error)
(global-set-key [C-f4] 'previous-error)
(global-set-key [C-f5] 'display-faces)
(global-set-key [C-f8] 'dired)
(global-set-key [C-f10] 'kill-compilation)
;; Keypad bindings
(global-set-key [up] "\C-p")
(global-set-key [down] "\C-n")
(global-set-key [left] "\C-b")
(global-set-key [right] "\C-f")
(global-set-key [home] "\C-a")
(global-set-key [end] "\C-e")
(global-set-key [prior] "\M-v")
(global-set-key [next] "\C-v")
(global-set-key [C-up] "\M-\C-b")
(global-set-key [C-down] "\M-\C-f")
(global-set-key [C-left] "\M-b")
(global-set-key [C-right] "\M-f")
(global-set-key [C-home] "\M-<")
(global-set-key [C-end] "\M->")
(global-set-key [C-prior] "\M-<")
(global-set-key [C-next] "\M->")
;; Mouse
(global-set-key [mouse-3] 'imenu)
;; Misc
(global-set-key [C-tab] "\C-q\t") ; Control tab quotes a tab.
(setq backup-by-copying-when-mismatch t)
;; Treat 'y' or <CR> as yes, 'n' as no.
(fset 'yes-or-no-p 'y-or-n-p)
(define-key query-replace-map [return] 'act)
(define-key query-replace-map [?\C-m] 'act)
;; Load packages
(require 'desktop)
(require 'tar-mode)
;; Pretty diff mode
(autoload 'ediff-buffers "ediff" "Intelligent Emacs interface to diff" t)
(autoload 'ediff-files "ediff" "Intelligent Emacs interface to diff" t)
(autoload 'ediff-files-remote "ediff"
"Intelligent Emacs interface to diff")
(if first-time
(setq auto-mode-alist
(append '(("\\.cpp$" . c++-mode)
("\\.hpp$" . c++-mode)
("\\.lsp$" . lisp-mode)
("\\.scm$" . scheme-mode)
("\\.pl$" . perl-mode)
) auto-mode-alist)))
;; Auto font lock mode
(defvar font-lock-auto-mode-list
(list 'c-mode 'c++-mode 'c++-c-mode 'emacs-lisp-mode 'lisp-mode 'perl-mode 'scheme-mode)
"List of modes to always start in font-lock-mode")
(defvar font-lock-mode-keyword-alist
'((c++-c-mode . c-font-lock-keywords)
(perl-mode . perl-font-lock-keywords))
"Associations between modes and keywords")
(defun font-lock-auto-mode-select ()
"Automatically select font-lock-mode if the current major mode is in font-lock-auto-mode-list"
(if (memq major-mode font-lock-auto-mode-list)
(progn
(font-lock-mode t))
)
)
(global-set-key [M-f1] 'font-lock-fontify-buffer)
;; New dabbrev stuff
;(require 'new-dabbrev)
(setq dabbrev-always-check-other-buffers t)
(setq dabbrev-abbrev-char-regexp "\\sw\\|\\s_")
(add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
'(lambda ()
(set (make-local-variable 'dabbrev-case-fold-search) nil)
(set (make-local-variable 'dabbrev-case-replace) nil)))
(add-hook 'c-mode-hook
'(lambda ()
(set (make-local-variable 'dabbrev-case-fold-search) nil)
(set (make-local-variable 'dabbrev-case-replace) nil)))
(add-hook 'text-mode-hook
'(lambda ()
(set (make-local-variable 'dabbrev-case-fold-search) t)
(set (make-local-variable 'dabbrev-case-replace) t)))
;; C++ and C mode...
(defun my-c++-mode-hook ()
(setq tab-width 4)
(define-key c++-mode-map "\C-m" 'reindent-then-newline-and-indent)
(define-key c++-mode-map "\C-ce" 'c-comment-edit)
(setq c++-auto-hungry-initial-state 'none)
(setq c++-delete-function 'backward-delete-char)
(setq c++-tab-always-indent t)
(setq c-indent-level 4)
(setq c-continued-statement-offset 4)
(setq c++-empty-arglist-indent 4))
(defun my-c-mode-hook ()
(setq tab-width 4)
(define-key c-mode-map "\C-m" 'reindent-then-newline-and-indent)
(define-key c-mode-map "\C-ce" 'c-comment-edit)
(setq c-auto-hungry-initial-state 'none)
(setq c-delete-function 'backward-delete-char)
(setq c-tab-always-indent t)
;; BSD-ish indentation style
(setq c-indent-level 4)
(setq c-continued-statement-offset 4)
(setq c-brace-offset -4)
(setq c-argdecl-indent 0)
(setq c-label-offset -4))
;; Perl mode
(defun my-perl-mode-hook ()
(setq tab-width 4)
(define-key c++-mode-map "\C-m" 'reindent-then-newline-and-indent)
(setq perl-indent-level 4)
(setq perl-continued-statement-offset 4))
;; Scheme mode...
(defun my-scheme-mode-hook ()
(define-key scheme-mode-map "\C-m" 'reindent-then-newline-and-indent))
;; Emacs-Lisp mode...
(defun my-lisp-mode-hook ()
(define-key lisp-mode-map "\C-m" 'reindent-then-newline-and-indent)
(define-key lisp-mode-map "\C-i" 'lisp-indent-line)
(define-key lisp-mode-map "\C-j" 'eval-print-last-sexp))
;; Add all of the hooks...
(add-hook 'c++-mode-hook 'my-c++-mode-hook)
(add-hook 'c-mode-hook 'my-c-mode-hook)
(add-hook 'scheme-mode-hook 'my-scheme-mode-hook)
(add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook 'my-lisp-mode-hook)
(add-hook 'lisp-mode-hook 'my-lisp-mode-hook)
(add-hook 'perl-mode-hook 'my-perl-mode-hook)
;; Complement to next-error
(defun previous-error (n)
"Visit previous compilation error message and corresponding source code."
(interactive "p")
(next-error (- n)))
;; Misc...
(transient-mark-mode 1)
(setq mark-even-if-inactive t)
(setq visible-bell nil)
(setq next-line-add-newlines nil)
(setq compile-command "make")
(setq suggest-key-bindings nil)
(put 'eval-expression 'disabled nil)
(put 'narrow-to-region 'disabled nil)
(put 'set-goal-column 'disabled nil)
(if (>= emacs-major-version 21)
(setq show-trailing-whitespace t))
;; Elisp archive searching
(autoload 'format-lisp-code-directory "lispdir" nil t)
(autoload 'lisp-dir-apropos "lispdir" nil t)
(autoload 'lisp-dir-retrieve "lispdir" nil t)
(autoload 'lisp-dir-verify "lispdir" nil t)
;; Font lock mode
(defun my-make-face (face color &optional bold)
"Create a face from a color and optionally make it bold"
(make-face face)
(copy-face 'default face)
(set-face-foreground face color)
(if bold (make-face-bold face))
)
(if (eq window-system 'x)
(progn
(my-make-face 'blue "blue")
(my-make-face 'red "red")
(my-make-face 'green "dark green")
(setq font-lock-comment-face 'blue)
(setq font-lock-string-face 'bold)
(setq font-lock-type-face 'bold)
(setq font-lock-keyword-face 'bold)
(setq font-lock-function-name-face 'red)
(setq font-lock-doc-string-face 'green)
(add-hook 'find-file-hooks 'font-lock-auto-mode-select)
(setq baud-rate 1000000)
(global-set-key "\C-cmm" 'menu-bar-mode)
(global-set-key "\C-cms" 'scroll-bar-mode)
(global-set-key [backspace] 'backward-delete-char)
; (global-set-key [delete] 'delete-char)
(standard-display-european t)
(load-library "iso-transl")))
;; X11 or PC using direct screen writes
(if window-system
(progn
;; (global-set-key [M-f1] 'hilit-repaint-command)
;; (global-set-key [M-f2] [?\C-u M-f1])
(setq hilit-mode-enable-list
'(not text-mode c-mode c++-mode emacs-lisp-mode lisp-mode
scheme-mode)
hilit-auto-highlight nil
hilit-auto-rehighlight 'visible
hilit-inhibit-hooks nil
hilit-inhibit-rebinding t)
(require 'hilit19)
(require 'paren))
(setq baud-rate 2400) ; For slow serial connections
)
;; TTY type terminal
(if (and (not window-system)
(not (equal system-type 'ms-dos)))
(progn
(if first-time
(progn
(keyboard-translate ?\C-h ?\C-?)
(keyboard-translate ?\C-? ?\C-h)))))
;; Under UNIX
(if (not (equal system-type 'ms-dos))
(progn
(if first-time
(server-start))))
;; Add any face changes here
(add-hook 'term-setup-hook 'my-term-setup-hook)
(defun my-term-setup-hook ()
(if (eq window-system 'pc)
(progn
;; (set-face-background 'default "red")
)))
;; Restore the "desktop" - do this as late as possible
(if first-time
(progn
(desktop-load-default)
(desktop-read)))
;; Indicate that this file has been read at least once
(setq first-time nil)
;; No need to debug anything now
(setq debug-on-error nil)
;; All done
(message "All done, %s%s" (user-login-name) ".")Extending the Range of Languages Emacs
UnderstandsNow, this is all very well if you only want to program in
the languages already catered for in
.emacs (C, C++, Perl, Lisp and Scheme),
but what happens if a new language called
whizbang comes out, full of exciting
features?The first thing to do is find out if whizbang comes with
any files that tell Emacs about the language. These usually
end in .el, short for Emacs
Lisp. For example, if whizbang is a FreeBSD port,
we can locate these files by doing&prompt.user; find /usr/ports/lang/whizbang -name "*.el" -printand install them by copying them into the Emacs site Lisp
directory. On &os;, this is
/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp.So for example, if the output from the find command
was/usr/ports/lang/whizbang/work/misc/whizbang.elwe would do&prompt.root; cp /usr/ports/lang/whizbang/work/misc/whizbang.el /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lispNext, we need to decide what extension whizbang source
files have. Let us say for the sake of argument that they all
end in .wiz. We need to add an entry to
our .emacs to make sure Emacs will be
able to use the information in
whizbang.el.Find the auto-mode-alist entry in
.emacs and add a line for whizbang, such
as:…
("\\.lsp$" . lisp-mode)
("\\.wiz$" . whizbang-mode)
("\\.scm$" . scheme-mode)
…This means that Emacs will automatically go into
whizbang-mode when you edit a file ending
in .wiz.Just below this, you will find the
font-lock-auto-mode-list entry. Add
whizbang-mode to it like so:;; Auto font lock mode
(defvar font-lock-auto-mode-list
(list 'c-mode 'c++-mode 'c++-c-mode 'emacs-lisp-mode 'whizbang-mode 'lisp-mode 'perl-mode 'scheme-mode)
"List of modes to always start in font-lock-mode")This means that Emacs will always enable
font-lock-mode (ie syntax highlighting)
when editing a .wiz file.And that is all that is needed. If there is anything else
you want done automatically when you open up
.wiz, you can add a
whizbang-mode hook (see
my-scheme-mode-hook for a simple example
that adds auto-indent).Further ReadingFor information about setting up a development environment
for contributing fixes to FreeBSD itself, please see
&man.development.7;.Brian Harvey and Matthew Wright
Simply Scheme
MIT 1994.
ISBN 0-262-08226-8Randall Schwartz
Learning Perl
O'Reilly 1993
ISBN 1-56592-042-2Patrick Henry Winston and Berthold Klaus Paul Horn
Lisp (3rd Edition)
Addison-Wesley 1989
ISBN 0-201-08319-1Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike
The Unix Programming Environment
Prentice-Hall 1984
ISBN 0-13-937681-XBrian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie The C
Programming Language (2nd Edition)
Prentice-Hall 1988
ISBN 0-13-110362-8Bjarne Stroustrup
The C++ Programming Language
Addison-Wesley 1991
ISBN 0-201-53992-6W. Richard Stevens Advanced Programming in the
Unix Environment
Addison-Wesley 1992
ISBN 0-201-56317-7W. Richard Stevens
Unix Network Programming
Prentice-Hall 1990
ISBN 0-13-949876-1