How to track the execution of a program using strace? By using tmux!

We will have two panels:

one for the execution of the command;

the second dedicated to displaying strace.

Don’t forget that you can search within everything displayed in a panel with tmux…

#!/bin/bash

TMPDIR=/tmp
FIFODIR=$(mktemp -p "${TMPDIR:-.}" -d strace-XXXX) || exit 1
FIFOPATH=$FIFODIR/fifo
mkfifo "$FIFOPATH" || { rmdir "$TMPDIR"; exit 1; }

COMMAND=$1
shift
ARGS=$@
PANE_ID=$(tmux if-shell "[ $(($(tmux display -p '8*#{pane_width}-20*#{pane_height}'))) -lt 0 ]" "splitw -v -d -c '#{pane_current_path}' -P -F '#{pane_id}' cat $FIFOPATH" "splitw -h -d -c '#{pane_current_path}' -P -F '#{pane_id}' cat $FIFOPATH")
tmux set-option -t $PANE_ID -p @mytitle "strace:$COMMAND"
tmux set-option -t $PANE_ID -p remain-on-exit on
strace $COMMAND $ARGS 2> $FIFOPATH

Thus, the strace tool sends its output to the stderr channel, which is then redirected to a fifo that is subsequently displayed in a tmux panel…