[SOLVED] Embedding version info in executable and retrieving it from Linux core dump?

Issue

I rely a lot on core dumps for finding and fixing rare bugs on my personal applications.

I have multiple versions of my applications installed side by side, and decide which one to run (it depends on some other applications). Only one version of the same tool can run at any given time. My launchers start with "ulimit -c unlimited". When/if the application crashes, a core dump is generated.

One issue is that "file somecoredump" tells me the name of the process generated the core file, but I have no way to know which version of the application generated it, so it's not easy to tell which executable to use.

I'm wondering how this issue can be solved?

I can think of a couple of bad ways:

1. Embed the version info into the process name, such as MyProcess2.1c. Now "file corefile" tells me the version. Really ugly, I won't consider it.
2. Every launcher modifies /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern and sets it to a path with the version info, such as /var/crash/2.1c/core. Ugly, because this setting affects all apps, not just mine. Also it only works now because I only allow a single version of the app to run at the same time, one day I might need to run multiple versions side-by-side.

What would be ideal for me is if there was a way to embed version info into the executable, and retrieve it from the core file. Is this possible?

Solution

You can use the strings command in linux to look for unique strings in a binary file. Perhaps you can compile the version into the binary such as this examnple from bash and then grep all the strings output to find it. Just prefix it with a unique string to make it easier to find?:

~]$ strings /usr/bin/bash | grep version
shell_version_string
build_version
sccs_version
rl_library_version
rl_do_lowercase_version
show_shell_version
rl_readline_version
dist_version
GNU bash, version %s-(%s)
GNU bash, version %s (%s)
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
@(#)Bash version 4.2.46(2) release GNU
display-shell-version
      -l    do not print tilde-prefixed versions of directories relative
    HOSTTYPE    The type of CPU this version of Bash is running under.
    OSTYPE  The version of Unix this version of Bash is running on.
    version, type `enable -n test'.
do-lowercase-version
.gnu.version
.gnu.version_r
~]$ 

Answered By - Joseph Ishak

Answer Checked By - Marie Seifert (WPSolving Admin)