The amount of information such tools are able to
extract is often influenced by the option flags used to
compile and link the program: There are often specific
"debugging" flags that cause the program to retain a
lot of self-descriptive information that would otherwise
have been discarded, things like information about the
names and types of variables.  Usually one can get (at
best) uninterpreted or only semi-interpreted hex dumps
of memory-resident data if debugging flags aren't used.

    A further complication is C's tradition of aggressive
optimization.  Even with debugging information present
the behavior of a program can seem perverse.  For example,
after an `assert (x >= 0)' failure the post-mortem output
might indicate that the value of x is 42 -- so, why did
the assertion fail?  It might be that the memory slot
devoted to x is not up-to-date with a transient x being
held in a register; the generated code would have stored
the new (negative) value into x's memory eventually, but
the assert fired first ...

    Summary: Traceback facilities (debugging facilities in
general) are system-specific and subject to variation,
compiler and linker options can often improve the quality
of the information they produce, and the information must
be viewed with a dash of caution.