System Debug Reference Manual (32650-90888)

Chapter 3 57

System Debug Interface Commands and Intrinsics

:SETDUMP Command

Arms the Debug call that is made during abnormal process termination.

Syntax

:SETDUMP [DB [,ST [,QS] ] [;ASCII] [;DEBUG="

commands

"] ]

Parameters

commands

A quoted string of system Debug commands, up to 255 characters long. If

not speciﬁed, this parameter defaults to a command string that produces a

dual mode stack trace and a register dump.

DB, ST, QS, ASCII These parameters are provided for compatibility with MPE V. If

speciﬁed, they are ignored.

Discussion

The :SETDUMP command enables automatic execution of a set of Debug commands when a

process terminates abnormally (aborts). This command affects all processes subsequently

created under the current job or session. That is, the setdump attribute and the

commands

parameter are inherited by any new process.

During the process abort sequence, Debug executes the commands speciﬁed in the

commands

parameter. Any output is sent to the process's standard list ﬁle($STDLIST). Any

commands that require input generate an error message.

If the process that aborts is being run from a job, the process terminates after executing

the command string. If the process is being run from a session, after the speciﬁed

command string has been executed, Debug stops to accept interactive commands with I/O

performed at the user terminal, contingent upon the following requirements:

• The abort did not occur while in system code, and

• The process entered the abort code through a native mode interrupt. Such aborts are

typically caused by arithmetic and code-related traps (see the XARITRAP and

XCODETRAP intrinsics).

NOTE

CM programs usually fail these tests.

Once Debug accepts interactive input, you can enter any Debug command. You may choose

to resume the process or have it terminate (refer to the CONTINUE command in chapter 4).

If the cause of the abort is a stack overﬂow, the command list is ignored and a stack trace is

sent to $STDLIST, after which the process is terminated with no interactive debugging

allowed.