Dumps

Dumps

As you spend more time in Linux, you’re invariably going to encounter a core dump. It happens for any number of reasons, of which the most common is a poorly-written program. If you’re a programmer, you probably already run into more than you care to count. Dumps, regardless of the reasons they occur, are a part of Linux.

Core dumps will be found in the directory from which the dumping program was running. These are files called core that contain the state of the program at the time it failed. To prgrammers, core dumps can be very useful in debugging an in-development program. A key diagnostic tool for assessing the cause of a program failure via core dumps is gdb. By executing the command

    gdb name of program core

you’ll be able to examine the state of the program at the time of the dump. This can point you precisely in the direction of a solution to the program’s failure.

For most users, however, core dumps are more of a nusiance than a tool. Given that the core file contains every element of the program’s state at the time of failure, these files can be huge. If you find a core file in a directory on your system, you can safely delete it without concern.

Unless, that is, you just like the little bright yellow bomb icon with the x’ed out eyes.