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From: bhoughto@pima.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc
Subject: Re: adb
Keywords: how why when
Message-ID: <2968@inews.intel.com>
Date: 12 Mar 91 01:28:52 GMT
References: <7606@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
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Distribution: usa
Organization: Intel Corp, Chandler, AZ
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In article <7606@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> 23n@sage.cc.purdue.edu writes:
>I am have been wondering about using adb.

You're right.  The man-page is good for reference only, and
it's too long for that (I distilled it, printed it, and
reduced it xerographically so it's four pages on one face
of an 8.5x11 sheet of xerobond, sort of like the two-volume
OED; it's a more fitting way to display that little data,
and it takes only one pin on my bulletin board).

If you have access to a set of Sun manuals (there's gotta
be a set _somewhere_ at Purdue), find them.  They include
the tutorial for the Sun version of adb(1), which is
different from other adb(1)'s (actually, Sun wrote a
different-capability-possessing version of adb(1) for the
Sun 386i's, too), but the differences are obvious.

If you have dbx(1), you can debug sufficiently.  Adb(1)
provides only a more raw interface that gives you more
access but less processing power, and almost no
interpretation (not even a prompt, for unrevealed
reasons).  It's great, though, if you know exactly what
you're looking for and don't need source code.

				--Blair
				  "0,-1?a2X4^i"