Getting Started with UDB

UDB is a reverse debugger created by Undo, which can be used to execute a program, play it forwards and backwards, and analyse its internal state. This is useful for determining the cause of bugs since it is possible to observe all of the program state up to the point of the bug.

UDB can also load recordings of your software created by LiveRecorder.

Launching a program in UDB

The following command will launch a program in UDB:

udb <path-to-exe>
...UDB starts...
(udb) run <your-arguments>

You can also use the --args parameter to specify the arguments on the command line rather than the debugger prompt:

udb --args <path-to-exe> <your-arguments>
...UDB starts...
(udb) run

Attaching to an existing process

Sometimes it’s not possible or convenient to launch a program in UDB; you can attach to an existing process using:

udb --pid=<pid> <path-to-exe>
...UDB starts...
(udb) continue

It’s important to specify the path to the executable so UDB can find the debug symbols corresponding to the process.

Basic navigation

UDB supports the same set of navigation commands as GDB - continue, next, finish etc. UDB also supports reverse equivalents of these commands to allow you to navigate forwards and backwards through your program’s execution:

Forwards	Reverse
continue	reverse-continue / rc
step	reverse-step
next	reverse-next / rn
finish	reverse-finish / rf
until	reverse-until

Other methods of navigation

Use the ugo start or ugo end commands to jump to the beginning or end of your program’s execution history.

You can jump to a point in the middle of your program’s execution by jumping to a bookmark that you’ve previously created, or by jumping to a specific moment in time.