Question

Simple c source code to execute a program:

int main ( int argc , char **argv )                                                                                                                          
{                                                                                                                                                            
        system ("XXXX");                                                                                                                           
        return 0;                                                                                                                                            
} 

Now compile it and debug with gdb , and i tried to view what address of “XXX” actually represents by using p command , but got an void , am i doing it wrong ?

Answer 1

If you want to examine a string located at address 0x40063c, use the GDB examine command:

(gdb) x/s 0x40063c

Note that this data is not on the stack. You can find out where that data is with info symbol command:

(gdb) info sym 0x40063c

(this should print something like symbol LC1 in .rodata of a.out)