title: What to do with a process dump?
body: <p>I am trying to learn on a more deeper level how programs work. I came across someone writing about "process dumping" and that that person said process dumping might be a way to get information from a program. I have tried this <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12977179/reading-living-process-memory-without-interrupting-it">process dumping</a> (dr jimbob's answer) method on my Linux machine and got a huge file from the program I used the script on. It mostly contains stuff such as <code>^@^@^@��^Q^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@�^O^@^@���^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@</code> but there were some strings and lots of random information (e.g. libraries) in the file. I am guessing the @ signs and other random combinations of symbols are just stuff in the program that is not formated in UTF-8/letter format. I also tried <a href="https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/6301/how-do-i-read-from-proc-pid-mem-under-linux/6302#6302">this method</a> and got lots of .dump files.</p>
  
  <p>My question boils down to: How do I actually read the dump file and get relevant information? Is it not more efficient to do something like <code>strings file.dump</code> since what I am looking for is readable information, not @ signs?</p>