how to redirect glibc's dump output ? (stack 'backtrace', etc)

[Linda A. Walsh]

Thanks for the reply... wasn't sure if I wanted to write
a bug report on it or not...w/o at least some comment...

Paul Pluzhnikov wrote:
> So, if you want to have libc messages go to stderr, set the
> LIBC_FATAL_STDERR_ environment variable to non-empty.
>   
----
Usually if one wants debug output, one sets takes extra steps.

It seems user-unfriendly (maybe developer friendly, but there
are alot more users than developers) to force on this type
of output by default.
>
>   
>> Even the stack backtrace echoed to the screen is useless for
>> most purposes
>> -- no one is willing or able to work from such useless output
>>     
>
> Useless to you does not mean useless to others.
> In fact it *is* often quite useful to me.
>   
----
    I'm sure... sorry was a bit short, but was a bit on the tired
side and having glibc push all my debug output off the screen and having
no way to turn it off in the wee hours of the morning, was really
adding salt to my wounds... ;-)

But I didn't say anything I didn't mean -- just not very nicely! ;-)

I.e. I'm sure it might,  only,  be helpful to someone working with glibc.

But to those developing any other program, they've always asked me
to send a stack trace from gdb.  I've yet to have anyone ask for
a memory map along with a backtrace.

I.e. wouldn't it be more user friendly to take a note from the kernel
and do fault-dumps to a file rather than the user's screen?   (I do remember
older machines (usually mainframes) where it was standard practice to send
fault-dump information to the screen (in place of 'core' files)...


>> so why is it dumped to the screen anyway?
>>     
----
Would you think all users would want all programs to dump
full fault-related debug info to the screen on any program error?

When I see raw errors coming to a screen -- I think "unhandled errors" --
beta or development code.

But too often I am seeing such output by default even in released materials.

It seems that having libraries dump errors, by default, to the user's screen
rather than a log file is becoming an unsightly new trend.

Do you really think it's needed for all programs to start dumping
errors to the screen?

BTW... thank you for the method to disable it.

I was afraid I was going to have to customize the source...
Ugh: not easy to maintain....