Unix History: Why does hexdump default to word alignment?

[Elazar Leibovich]

On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 9:28 AM, guy keren <choo at actcom.co.il> wrote:

> you can use a debugger only for the basic code. you cannot use a debugger
> when you're dealing with multiple threads that access the same shared data
> and could have race conditions. in those cases you need to run a test, find
> that the eventual data is incorrect, and track back using logs and friends,
> to find the culprit(s).
>

I think that what Nadav meant, is instead of adding

log_raw_data_to_file(file);

you can set a breakpoint there, and watch the data with gdb's x.

Like you I find the printf-debugging approach more appealing, but it might
be that I'm just stuck in the past, and reluctant to try new tools.


>
> this is the common case in storage systems - but also in other types of
> systems.


Other type I ran into, is when passing binary data from process A to
process B using pipes, it's extremely quick to test the actual data with
./proc | hexdump -C, then by redirecting the output to a file, or tapping
the network/pipe.
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