bashdb, The Bash Debugger Project, is a source-code debugger for bash that follows the gdb command syntax.
The purpose of a debugger such as the BASH debugger is to allow you to see what is going on “inside” a bash script while it executes.
The BASH debugger can do four main kinds of things (plus other things in support of these) to help you find bugs:
- Start your script, specifying anything that might affect its behavior.
- Make your script stop on specified conditions.
- Examine what has happened, when your script has stopped.
- Change things in your script, so you can experiment with correcting the effects of one bug and go on to learn about another.
The command syntax generally follows that of the zsh debugger trepanning debuggers and, more generally, GNU debugger gdb.
Although you can use bashdb to debug scripts written in bash, it can also be used just as a front-end for learning more about programming in bash. As an additional aid, the debugger can be used within the context of an existing script with its functions and variables that have already been initialized; fragments of the existing can be experimented with by entering them inside the debugger.
Website: bashdb.sourceforge.net
Support: Documentation, SourceForge Project Page
Developer: Rocky Bernstein
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
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