Building a Debugger

by Brand, Sy

• ISBN13: 9781718504080
• ISBN10: 171850408X
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781718504097
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2025-05-20
• Publisher: No Starch Press

Summary

Master the inner workings of your x64 Linux system and expand your OS expertise by writing your very own debugger using C++.

If debuggers seem like magic to you, there is no better way to demystify them than to write your own. This book will show you exactly how to do it, walking you through the entire process of building a debugger for x64 Linux systems using C++. As go from an empty filesystem folder to a fully fledged debugger capable of setting breakpoints, stepping through code, manipulating variables, and more, you’ll learn how to:

• Attach to a process
• Read and write to registers
• Set hardware and software breakpoints
• Output disassembly
• Support multithreading and other tasks

As you add features to your debugger, you’ll also pick up a wealth of knowledge about operating systems, compilers, software testing, and low-level programming that you can use in your day-to-day development.

Author Biography

Sy Brand is Microsoft’s C++ Developer Advocate. With more than 10 years’ experience in developer tooling, they’ve worked on profilers, compilers, language runtimes, standard libraries, and, of course, debuggers. They’ve also contributed to the standards for C++, DWARF, and HSA.

They graduated from the University of St Andrews with a 1st class degree in computer science, where they specialized in compiler implementation.

Outside the world of technology, they are a published poet, maker of experimental films and music, activist, and parent to three cats and one entire human.