memory dump


memory dump

[′mem·rē ‚dəmp] (computer science) storage dump

memory dump

(programming, operating system, jargon)(Or "core dump") Afile on hard disk (traditionally called "core") containinga copy of the contents of a process's memory, produced whena process is aborted by certain kinds of internal error orsignal.

Debuggers like adb and gdb can load the dump file anddisplay the information it contains about the state of therunning program. This can be related to the program code,both object code and, in a source-level debugger, thesource code. Information includes the contents ofregisters, the call stack and all other program data.

memory dump

A display or printout of all or selected contents of RAM. After a program abends (crashes), a memory dump is taken in order to analyze the status of the program. The programmer looks into the memory buffers to see which data items were being worked on at the time of failure. Counters, variables, switches and flags are also inspected. See brain dump.