203
C
HAPTER
7
Miscellaneous Tools
n addition to the standard development tools used in software develop-
ment projects, many other utilities are also helpful. Most of the time
these utilities are not directly related to the software development process
but are used as helping aids. This chapter provides an introduction to
some of these utilities that are extremely helpful in the software develop-
ment process. Some of the more common uses of these utilities are pre-
sented and readers are encouraged to experiment with them. If properly
utilized, they may save time and increase productivity.
The
indent
utility is helpful in implementing a common programming
style scheme to all source code files in a project. The
sed
utility is useful
for searching and replacing text across multiple files. The
diff
command
is used to display difference between two or more files. The
cscope
and
cbrowser
are used to locate symbols in a software source code tree.
The
strace
and
ltrace
utilities are useful to find out system and
library calls when a program is executed. GNU binary utilities are a set of
utilities that is often used for different needs. Information about GNU util-
ities is presented in this chapter as well.
I