[erlang-questions] Debugging embedded Erlang system

[Chandru]

On 21 October 2011 17:30, Kaiduan Xie <kaiduanx@REDACTED> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> We need to debug an Erlang server running in an embedded system where
> no GUI is available. We can attach an Erlang shell to the server from
> a remote box with GUI. Can we use debugger on GUI box to remote debug
> the server on embedded system? Can someone share the experience?
>
>
You can use the in built trace facilities? I personally use dbg whenever I
need to look at a running system and figure out what is happening. Some care
is needed on what parts of the system you trace to make sure you don't swamp
the system with traces. I have rendered a few systems unsuable because of
the volume of tracing if the wrong trace pattern is chosen :) I typically
use something like this:

dbg:tracer(port, dbg:trace_port(file, "trace_file.dbg")).
dbg:p(all,call).
dbg:tp(module, function, dbg:fun2ms(fun(_) -> return_trace() end)).

Traces will now start to be written to the file trace_file.dbg

Once you've collected enough traces:
dbg:ctp().
dbg:flush_trace_port().

You can then examine the trace file (binary file) using commands in dbg. I
use the attached module to convert it to plain text.

Or you can take a look at redbug: https://code.google.com/p/eper/

cheers
Chandru
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