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Home » U++ TheIDE » U++ TheIDE: Other Features Wishlist and/or Bugs » debugger wishlist
debugger wishlist [message #1229] Fri, 24 February 2006 08:39 Go to next message
iplayfast is currently offline  iplayfast
Messages: 47
Registered: February 2006
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1. Breakpoint selection in the gutter. Click the gutter and a dot appears. Click again it goes away. You can get cute and add all sorts of functionality to it, but the basic breakpoint is really missed.

2. Mouse hover shows variables.
Re: debugger wishlist [message #1234 is a reply to message #1229] Fri, 24 February 2006 10:59 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
Messages: 13975
Registered: November 2005
Ultimate Member
What is the "gutter" ?

BTW, my wishlist for debugger/linux is makeing it "native" - bypassing GDB and doing stuff directly. That is how MSC debugger works now, using dbghelp.dll API. The missing part is equivalent library (and needed knowhow) for GDB.

Mirek
Re: debugger wishlist [message #1240 is a reply to message #1234] Fri, 24 February 2006 17:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iplayfast is currently offline  iplayfast
Messages: 47
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The gutter is the white area between the left side of the code and the frame. In this ide it's very small (about 1/8" on my monitor) on Borlands it is large enough to show line numbers.


I'm not sure what the advantage of going native is. If the gbd is running in the background but you can't actually tell, then what's the difference?

Plus, are you planning on supporting multiple processors. You will be spending all your time writting the debugger. I think the strategy you are currently using is pretty good.
Re: debugger wishlist [message #1242 is a reply to message #1240] Fri, 24 February 2006 18:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
Messages: 13975
Registered: November 2005
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iplayfast wrote on Fri, 24 February 2006 11:47

The gutter is the white area between the left side of the code and the frame. In this ide it's very small (about 1/8" on my monitor) on Borlands it is large enough to show line numbers.


I'm not sure what the advantage of going native is. If the gbd is running in the background but you can't actually tell, then what's the difference?

Plus, are you planning on supporting multiple processors. You will be spending all your time writting the debugger. I think the strategy you are currently using is pretty good.



Well, in that case you, breakpoints should behave exactly as you wish (doubleclick the gutter).

You can even have line numbers, just activate them in environment settings (personally I prefer to have more space for source text, but...)

The GDB problem is that text communication is very slow with it. E.g. when you are about to display any widget class (using "print" command in GDB), GDB feeds you with more than 100KB data that you have to parse. Now if you have more such variables to display, things can get awfuly slow.

If only GDB supported giving you type information, I would rather used raw hex dumps of memory.... however, U++ debugger for MSC compiler is near to ideal solution.

Mirek
Re: debugger wishlist [message #1245 is a reply to message #1242] Fri, 24 February 2006 18:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iplayfast is currently offline  iplayfast
Messages: 47
Registered: February 2006
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luzr wrote on Fri, 24 February 2006 12:01


Well, in that case you, breakpoints should behave exactly as you wish (doubleclick the gutter).

You can even have line numbers, just activate them in environment settings (personally I prefer to have more space for source text, but...)

Mirek


Missed that with the double clicking. You guys are fast at granting wishes Smile I don't normally want line numbers, I was just using that as an example. However now that you mention it, it would be nice to be able to toggle that on/off in the context menu.

Wishlist of context menu when editing
Help on topic under cursor (should be mapped to same as F1)
goto line
Line numbers checkbox
When the cursor is in a function/class/structure name Go to declaration
Go to Implementation
Bookmark with submenu allowing you to check/uncheck up to 10 different bookmarks
Goto Bookmark with submenu (matching above).
Add Todo

Code Warrior has a nice feature that becomes addictive. A dropdown list of functions in the file that allows you to go to the top of the function you select.
In the .h it would be useful to have the same only for classes and structures.

(Aren't you sorry you granted my breakpoint wish Smile

Oh and I also wish that the breakpoint toggle was a single click.

[Updated on: Fri, 24 February 2006 18:37]

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Re: debugger wishlist [message #1246 is a reply to message #1245] Fri, 24 February 2006 18:35 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
Messages: 13975
Registered: November 2005
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iplayfast wrote on Fri, 24 February 2006 12:24

luzr wrote on Fri, 24 February 2006 12:01


Well, in that case you, breakpoints should behave exactly as you wish (doubleclick the gutter).

You can even have line numbers, just activate them in environment settings (personally I prefer to have more space for source text, but...)

Mirek


Missed that with the double clicking. You guys are fast at granting wishes Smile I don't normally want line numbers, I was just using that as an example. However now that you mention it, it would be nice to be able to toggle that on/off in the context menu.


OK, puttin' to ToDo...

However, we absolutely need to concetrate on serious bugs now to be able to launch 602 (511 is too out-dated now).

Mirek
Re: debugger wishlist [message #1247 is a reply to message #1246] Fri, 24 February 2006 18:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iplayfast is currently offline  iplayfast
Messages: 47
Registered: February 2006
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You respond so fast. I edited the original wish and added some more. Very Happy I understand that these are wishes and will be fit in (or not) as the schedule allows.
Re: debugger wishlist [message #1248 is a reply to message #1245] Fri, 24 February 2006 18:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
Messages: 13975
Registered: November 2005
Ultimate Member
I am not sure what version are you using, but 602:

Quote:


When the cursor is in a function/class/structure name Go to declaration



Alt+I

Quote:


Go to Implementation



Alt+J

Quote:


Bookmark with submenu allowing you to check/uncheck up to 10 different bookmarks



File/Bookmarks, altso Ctrl+Shift+0-9 to set, without Shift to go.

Quote:


Code Warrior has a nice feature that becomes addictive. A dropdown list of functions in the file that allows you to go to the top of the function you select.



Ctrl+G. Use for goto line as well.

Quote:


Oh and I also wish that the breakpoint toggle was a single click.



OK Smile Will add an option. (Personally, I prefer F9).

Mirek

Re: debugger wishlist [message #1253 is a reply to message #1248] Fri, 24 February 2006 19:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iplayfast is currently offline  iplayfast
Messages: 47
Registered: February 2006
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That's all very useful info. I wouldn't have guessed at all that functionality being available. Which is my point.
The functionallity should be made more visible by putting it into the context menu. (Ie right click in the source code and see all this stuff you've got).

The fact that there is key assignments for it should also be shown in the context menu. Then people can learn to use your software with menus, but as they get more used to it, they can switch to keys combinations.
Re: debugger wishlist [message #1261 is a reply to message #1253] Fri, 24 February 2006 21:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
Messages: 13975
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iplayfast wrote on Fri, 24 February 2006 13:33

That's all very useful info. I wouldn't have guessed at all that functionality being available. Which is my point.
The functionallity should be made more visible by putting it into the context menu. (Ie right click in the source code and see all this stuff you've got).

The fact that there is key assignments for it should also be shown in the context menu. Then people can learn to use your software with menus, but as they get more used to it, they can switch to keys combinations.


Well, it is all (or most of it) in Assist menu, but you have a point here, context menu in source editor could be much more developed. In ToDo Smile

Mirek
Re: debugger wishlist [message #1327 is a reply to message #1229] Mon, 27 February 2006 23:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
wilho is currently offline  wilho
Messages: 19
Registered: February 2006
Promising Member
call stack viewer would be nice...

[Updated on: Mon, 27 February 2006 23:24]

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Re: debugger wishlist [message #1329 is a reply to message #1327] Mon, 27 February 2006 23:35 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
Messages: 13975
Registered: November 2005
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wilho wrote on Mon, 27 February 2006 17:24

call stack viewer would be nice...


It expands from that droplist with function name.

Mirek
Re: debugger wishlist [message #1331 is a reply to message #1229] Mon, 27 February 2006 23:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
wilho is currently offline  wilho
Messages: 19
Registered: February 2006
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And I wondered how in earth there isn't one Very Happy

Thanks.
Re: debugger wishlist [message #1508 is a reply to message #1229] Tue, 07 March 2006 17:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mr_ped is currently offline  mr_ped
Messages: 825
Registered: November 2005
Location: Czech Republic - Praha
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I can think of many improvements to debugger, but many of them are not important at all for Ultimate++.
Yet in case you will have some mood to improve debugger, here are some ideas.
(I was testing with 602 .. BTW, I'm unable to get version number inside of TheIDE, there's no "about" box in menu)

- a way to format values per variable in Watches.
(i.e. "CheckSum,h" in Watches would produce value of CheckSum variable, but shown as hexa number)
(it's not only about hexa, in MS VS it was sometimes crucial to specify number of array elements to show, etc...)

BTW, I prefer hexa values as default, some global switch in debug would be nice too.

- in ASM view there are so many things missing...
flags, FPU regs
hints about final value (i.e. [ebp-0x4] should have somewhere hint "0xaddress : 0xvalue", where address is ebp-4, and value the memory content), etc... (just like "Autos" do work with C source)
Editing values of system registers (can't be done trough Watches too, as they don't know "EAX")
I know this is not ASM debugger, so these are not important at all, yet if your ToDo will be too empty, there's lot of room for improvements here.

- improved Autos, if you have in source for example:
void foo(void) {
  long tab[10], i, j;
  /* ... */
  for (i=0; i < 9; ++i)
    j = tab[i] + tab[i+1];
}

Let the Autos show also value inside of array (tab[i] and tab[i+1]), not just "tab" address and i value.
actually "tab" is shown as "address->first_value", there's no sign of array.
"tab[3]" in Watches does produce "Only pointer can be dereferenced" (this is connected to formated output too)

- improved Memory view:
Goto - if I enter "i", it will go to "&i", not to value of "i".
Ability to switch between 8bit/16bit/32b/64b/128b/256b values.
It's sort of pity to read long 0x12345678 like 0x78 0x56 0x34 0x12 (on Intel).
Multiple "memory view" windows (undockable), (this one would be nice also with "watches", especially if you are comparing for example two different instances of the same class, it's nice to have them as tiled windows)

- conditional breakpoints
(it was always a pain for me to make them work in MS VS, but in the end they helped a lot some times)

WAIT A SEC!
I can *not* change value of anything in Autos/Locals/Watches.
Now this one is major!
If I start to debug some code, and I notice some error which does produce bad input to some other function, I often like to correct it by hand in debugger, and continue further to check for more errors. Having to fix the problem, recompile, restart, go to the desired place is IMHO too much hassle.
Actually having the ability to change values is nice also for testing extreme conditions without modifying sources to call your functions under such condition.

I can not modify memory also!


-----------------
Well, enough for today. Smile
Re: debugger wishlist [message #1514 is a reply to message #1508] Tue, 07 March 2006 22:12 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
Messages: 13975
Registered: November 2005
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mr_ped wrote on Tue, 07 March 2006 11:08

I can think of many improvements to debugger, but many of them are not important at all for Ultimate++.
Yet in case you will have some mood to improve debugger, here are some ideas.



Just for the record, are you speaking about GCC/GDB or MSC?

Mirek
Re: debugger wishlist [message #1540 is a reply to message #1229] Wed, 08 March 2006 14:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mr_ped is currently offline  mr_ped
Messages: 825
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Experienced Contributor
Embarassed UPS...

WinXP + MS VC++ Toolkit 2003
Re: debugger wishlist [message #1632 is a reply to message #1229] Fri, 10 March 2006 23:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
hojtsy is currently offline  hojtsy
Messages: 241
Registered: January 2006
Location: Budapest, Hungary
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Sometimes the value of a watched variable is very long and gets truncated by the window edge. I would like that to be broken up into multiple lines. There are also some variables which seem to be truncated in the middle of the line (bug?), I would like to see the full value.
And displaying in tooltip the value of variables hovered in the editor would be quite cool.
Re: debugger wishlist [message #1644 is a reply to message #1632] Sat, 11 March 2006 11:01 Go to previous message
unodgs is currently offline  unodgs
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Registered: November 2005
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Ultimate Contributor

hojtsy wrote on Fri, 10 March 2006 17:21

Sometimes the value of a watched variable is very long and gets truncated by the window edge. I would like that to be broken up into multiple lines. There are also some variables which seem to be truncated in the middle of the line (bug?), I would like to see the full value.
And displaying in tooltip the value of variables hovered in the editor would be quite cool.


I second all that!
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