How to programmatically cause a core dump in C/C++
A few years ago, Google released the coredumper library.
Overview
The coredumper library can be compiled into applications to create core dumps of the running program -- without terminating. It supports both single- and multi-threaded core dumps, even if the kernel does not natively support multi-threaded core files.
Coredumper is distributed under the terms of the BSD License.
Example
This is by no means a complete example; it simply gives you a feel for what the coredumper API looks like.
#include <google/coredumper.h> ... WriteCoreDump('core.myprogram'); /* Keep going, we generated a core file, * but we didn't crash. */
It's not what you were asking for, but maybe it's even better :)
Raising of signal number 6 (SIGABRT
in Linux) is one way to do it (though keep in mind that SIGABRT is not required to be 6 in all POSIX implementations so you may want to use the SIGABRT
value itself if this is anything other than quick'n'dirty debug code).
#include <signal.h>
: : :
raise (SIGABRT);
Calling abort()
will also cause a core dump, and you can even do this without terminating your process by calling fork()
followed by abort()
in the child only - see this answer for details.