wish: more flexible debugger

[Tom Hanlin]

No fear, there will be future versions! Your suggestions are appreciated
and we'll do our best to make them happen.

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Tom Hanlin
PowerBASIC Staff

[Paul Squires]

I have to agree with John on this one. I've had PB/DLL 6 for six
months now and the debugger is the hardest thing I had to get
used to. Adding more than 3 or 4 watch variables is painfull
when you are stepping through the code and waiting for them to
update.

After using VB for the past few years I guess I have gotten a
little used to their debugger and the ease of use.

All in all, my expectations of PB/DLL have been surpassed. I
would not trade it for the world.



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Paul Squires
[email protected]

[John Kovacich]

How about only updating watched variables when they are modified? The current debugger is
SOOOOOO slow it to step when viewing more than 2 or 3 variables.

And a clear all watch variables would be nice too.



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Thanks,

John Kovacich

[Ian Cairns]

How about adding and removing variables from the watch list by using
the mouse? Double-clicking on a variable in the program would add it
and the same action in the watch list would remove it. Also the ability
to 'drag' the variables to re-order them in the watch list.

Regards,

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[email protected]

[Paul Dwyer]

...And be able to see the contents of an Array!!!

VB did this with a tree view in the debugger.
When implementing encryption and compression algorithms it's necessary to check the data through an entire iteration to see at what point bugs are corrupting the data.
Also being able to open a UDT array is good for debugging DB apps etc.



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Paul Dwyer
Network Engineer
Aussie in Tokyo
(Paul282 at VB-World)

[Daniel Corbier]

I've been using the debugger more often lately, and I have a few
more comments/suggestions.

- I wasn't able to view values from pointer arrays in the Watch
window. For instance I can't watch something like @PtrArray(0).
(I can view a pointer value, such as @Ptr, and a pointer index,
like @Ptr[0], and a pointer address, Ptr, but I can't view a
pointer array value. I need this also).

- I'd like a way to watch a range of values from an array
(without manually adding an entry for each element).
I can accomplish this by using $Debug Print in a For-Next
loop. But a limitation brings me to the next wish.

- In addition to making the window at the bottom resizable,
I want to be able paste the contents from that window (and
the watch window as well) to the clipboard when necessary.

- If I place $Debug Print in a for next loop, it seems like
it prints many blank lines before printing the debug lines
at the very end. It would be better without the blank lines.

- I'd like to scroll with PageUp/PageDown in the Debug window
at the bottom. I can at least scroll up & down that way in the
source code box even if it's a bit tedious. But I can't even
do that much in the bottom window, and it's so small.

- Context sensitive help for the debugger with F1 would be nice.
I was going to suggest Debug.Print like VB. It's afterwards
that I discovered that it does exist. F1 would have saved some
time in learning about PB's $Debug Print. It's not too obvious
in the main help file either. "Debug" turns up nothing in the
help index, unless I put a $ in front.


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Daniel Corbier
UCalc Fast Math Parser
http://www.ucalc.com

[Tom Hanlin]

Excellent suggestions. Duly noted. Thanks!

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Tom Hanlin
PowerBASIC Staff

[Daniel Corbier]

I have some suggestions for the debugger.

- Resizable windows and better scrolling.
Sometimes the information I want in the watch window is beyond
the screen on the right. The source code window has a scroll
bar, but the output doesn't. And I can't resize it either.
Also, I can't scroll up and down with the scroll bar. In the
current version I can only click on the up and down buttons.
It's tedious to scroll through a large program that way.

- Minimize button (on the top right)
I may need to go launch another program without unloading
the debugger. Currently only an X button is available.
There are ways around it, but their not convenient.

- Allow register variables to be monitored.
It seems like register variables always stay at 0 in the watch
window. I think someone else mentioned this in one of the
forums. Register variables are fast, but speed is not too
important when debugging. So that can be turned off for debugging.

- Button for stepping out of a loop
There's a button to step out of a function. It would be nice
if there were a button to step out of a loop w/o exiting the
whole function.

- Add button for Run to Cursor
I later realized that I can step out of a loop by selecting
Run to Cursor from the menu. It would be nice to place a button
for it so that I don't have to open the menu each time.

- A button to watch the stack.
VB has something like this which looks pretty interesting.
(I don't have an immediate use for it, but I can see how it
can be useful later on).

- Support for evaluating expressions. Not just variables.
For instance, it would be nice if I can add a watch for
Mid$(text$, 25, 3)


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Daniel Corbier
UCalc Fast Math Parser
http://www.ucalc.com