gcore

GCORE(1)                     General Commands Manual                    GCORE(1)

NAME
     gcore – get core images of running processes

SYNOPSIS
     gcore [-s] [-v] [-b size] [-o path | -c pathformat] pid

DESCRIPTION
     The gcore program creates a core file image of the process specified by
     pid.  The resulting core file can be used with a debugger, e.g.  lldb(1),
     to examine the state of the process.

     The following options are available:

     -s          Suspend the process while the core file is captured.

     -v          Report progress on the dump as it proceeds.

     -b size     Limit the size of the core file to size MiBytes.

     The following options control the name of the core file:

     -o path
           Write the core file to path.

     -c pathformat
           Write the core file to pathformat.  The pathformat string is treated
           as a pathname that may contain various special characters which cause
           the interpolation of strings representing specific attributes of the
           process into the name.

           Each special character is introduced by the % character.  The format
           characters and their meanings are:

           N           The name of the program being dumped, as reported by
                       ps(1).

           U           The uid of the process being dumped, converted to a
                       string.

           P           The pid of the process being dumped, converted to a
                       string.

           T           The time when the core file was taken, converted to ISO
                       8601 format.

           %           Output a percent character.

     The default file name used by gcore is %N-%P-%T.  By default, the core file
     will be written to a directory whose name is determined from the
     kern.corefile MIB.  This can be printed or modified using sysctl(8).

     The directory where the core file is to be written must be accessible to
     the owner of the target process.

     gcore will not overwrite an existing file, nor will it create missing
     directories in the path.

FILES
     /cores/%N-%P-%T       default pathname for the corefile.

EXIT STATUS
     The gcore utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO
     lldb(1), core(5), Mach-O(5), sudo(8), sysctl(8)

BUGS
     With the -b flag, gcore writes out as much data as it can up to the
     specified limit, even if that results in an incomplete core image.  Such a
     partial core dump may confuse subsequent programs that attempt to parse the
     contents of such files.

Darwin                          February 10, 2016                         Darwin