Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!bionet!agate!ucbvax!NUSVM.BITNET!GBOPOLY1
From: GBOPOLY1@NUSVM.BITNET (fclim)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: /com/debug
Message-ID: <8810130648.AA10906@umix.cc.umich.edu>
Date: 13 Oct 88 08:01:58 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 59
X-Unparsable-Date: Thu, 13 Oct 88 13:56:52 SST


     debug is a wonderful tool to have; it had helped me a lot in
developing many programs.  however, i feel that there are 4 areas
in which it can be improved upon.  i am borrowing these ideas from
the microsoft codeview(tm) debugger.

(1) /com/debug should have a watch facility.  when i put a watch
    on the variable foo, a new pane will be created.  the value of
    foo will be displayed in this pane.  when foo is re-assigned,
    the watch pane will be refreshed to show the current value of
    foo.

(2) i can't remember what microsoft call this one; it's akin to
    watch.  basically, the debugger will "go" until a condition
    become true; then it go back into interactive mode.
    currently, /com/debug only allow breakpoints.  but, suppose
    i have a long while loop with the header
          while (foo == 'n') {
               ....
          }
    this means i have to look for the line number after the }
    in order to put a breakpoint there.  this line may be a few
    pages down from the current page.
    i think it would simpler if we have the /com/debug command
          go until foo != 'n'
    this way i can skip the while loop which i know is bug-free.

(3) if my code contain
          char *foo;
          ...
          foo = getpass("passwd: ");

    then i can't do things like print foo.   it will print the
    address of foo and not the contents.
    the way out now is either
          print foo(:0:), foo(:1:), foo(:2:), ...
    (oops, my keyboard hasn't any square brackets).
    or
          char foo(:16:);
          ....
          strcpy(foo, getpass("passwd: "));

(4) if i issue the debug command
          e foo, bar
    it will print the values of foo and bar on two separate lines.
    i like to issue commands like
          print "foo = %d, bar = %d\n", foo, bar
    this will only take up one line in the debug transcript pane.


i hope the new release of /com/debug will incorporate these features;
especially the first 3.


fclim          --- gbopoly1 % nusvm.bitnet @ cunyvm.cuny.edu
computer centre
singapore polytechnic
dover road
singapore 0513.