# ianlancetaylor/libbacktrace

A C library that may be linked into a C/C++ program to produce symbolic backtraces

Repository: https://github.com/ianlancetaylor/libbacktrace
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/libbacktrace
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Last push: 2026-08-31T19:42:59+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 77/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 100, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3644, "days_push": 2, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1197, forks 267 (observed 2026-09-01T02:14:02.973341+00:00)

## What it is
A C library that can be linked into C/C++ programs to produce symbolic backtraces, supporting ELF, PE/COFF, Mach-O, and XCOFF executables with DWARF debug info. Functions are largely async-signal-safe, making it suitable for crash handlers and profilers.

## Use cases
- print a detailed symbolic backtrace when an error occurs
- collect stack traces for profiling information
- capture backtraces from within a signal handler
- debug crashes in C/C++ applications
- add stack trace reporting to a custom error handling system

## When to choose
- you need symbolic backtraces in a C/C++ program without a heavyweight dependency
- you need async-signal-safe stack trace capture for crash reporting
- you target multiple platforms including Linux, macOS, Windows, and AIX

## When to avoid
- you only need backtraces in managed languages with built-in stack traces
- your platform or object file format is unsupported
- you want a maintained higher-level crash reporting service instead of a low-level library

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: error-handling, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools, performance
- platform: windows, bsd, cross-platform, cpp, c
- tags: backtrace, dwarf, stack-trace, signal-safe, profiling, debugging, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- ianlancetaylor/libbacktrace (main) score 77

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-09-01T02:14:02.973341+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:22:02.612281+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/ianlancetaylor/libbacktrace (fetched 2026-09-01T02:14:02.973341+00:00, sha 2d8d758b74a0)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.