Any errors reported by the library are passed to the function
gsl_error. By running your programs under gdb and setting a
breakpoint in this function you can automatically catch any library
errors. You can add a breakpoint for every session by putting
break gsl_error
into your .gdbinit file in the directory where your program is started.
If the breakpoint catches an error then you can use a backtrace
(bt) to see the call-tree, and the arguments which possibly
caused the error. By moving up into the calling function you can
investigate the values of variables at that point. Here is an example
from the program fft/test_trap, which contains the following
line,
status = gsl_fft_complex_wavetable_alloc (0, &complex_wavetable);
The function gsl_fft_complex_wavetable_alloc takes the length of
an FFT as its first argument. When this line is executed an error will
be generated because the length of an FFT is not allowed to be zero.
To debug this problem we start gdb, using the file
.gdbinit to define a breakpoint in gsl_error,
$ gdb test_trap 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 4.16 (i586-debian-linux), Copyright 1996 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Breakpoint 1 at 0x8050b1e: file error.c, line 14.
When we run the program this breakpoint catches the error and shows the reason for it.
(gdb) run
Starting program: test_trap
Breakpoint 1, gsl_error (reason=0x8052b0d
"length n must be positive integer",
file=0x8052b04 "c_init.c", line=108, gsl_errno=1)
at error.c:14
14 if (gsl_error_handler)
The first argument of gsl_error is always a string describing the
error. Now we can look at the backtrace to see what caused the problem,
(gdb) bt
#0 gsl_error (reason=0x8052b0d
"length n must be positive integer",
file=0x8052b04 "c_init.c", line=108, gsl_errno=1)
at error.c:14
#1 0x8049376 in gsl_fft_complex_wavetable_alloc (n=0,
wavetable=0xbffff778) at c_init.c:108
#2 0x8048a00 in main (argc=1, argv=0xbffff9bc)
at test_trap.c:94
#3 0x80488be in ___crt_dummy__ ()
We can see that the error was generated in the function
gsl_fft_complex_wavetable_alloc when it was called with an
argument of n=0. The original call came from line 94 in the
file test_trap.c.
By moving up to the level of the original call we can find the line that caused the error,
(gdb) up
#1 0x8049376 in gsl_fft_complex_wavetable_alloc (n=0,
wavetable=0xbffff778) at c_init.c:108
108 GSL_ERROR ("length n must be positive integer", GSL_EDOM);
(gdb) up
#2 0x8048a00 in main (argc=1, argv=0xbffff9bc)
at test_trap.c:94
94 status = gsl_fft_complex_wavetable_alloc (0,
&complex_wavetable);
Thus we have found the line that caused the problem. From this point we
could also print out the values of other variables such as
complex_wavetable.