Debuger

[Douglas McDonald]

My most needed new feature would be a real debugger. To be able to single step and set break points.

Maybe there is a better way to do it, I don't know enough about zTrace yet, but to debug a routine I have to write it in PB, debug it, then paste it into FF3. And maybe thats ok since the debugger needs to be part of the compiler.

[Douglas McDonald]

ztrace is pretty cool. I was dubugging in a thread and found if I used thread suspend and resume I could basically step through the code and watch the zTrace output. Not a replacement for a debugger but it works.

[David Kenny]

Douglas,

Have you ever used the debugger that comes with PB?  I only use it when my program is crashing and I can't get any output out of it any other way, but it sure can be handy. It can take some time to figure out how to use it effectively.

I tend to use ztrace first because of the speed and simplicity.

David

[John Montenigro]

Douglas and David,

I have not tried to use zTrace. In the past I tried to use the PB IDE's debugger: opening FF's generated code and start stepping. It's not easy or fun.

Where can I get zTrace? Do you use it from within FF? How? Can you detail the specifics?

Thanks,
-JohnM

[Rolf Brandt]

Hi John,

zTrace is now part of FF3. To enable it go to Project Settings and activate zTrace Debugging.

Usage is very simple. Anywhere in your code if you want to watch the behaviour of a variable just put a line like this:
zTrace str$(MyLongVar)  or
zTrace "Value of MyVar:" & str$(MyVar)

If you want to watch a string variable this will not work as expected:
zTrace MyString

You would have to use:
zTrace "" & MyString
or
zTrace "Value of MyString:" &  MyString

ZTrace will open a little yellow window to show you the values.

[Douglas McDonald]

David,

Have you ever used the debugger that comes with PB?

In my post I stated :

I have to write it in PB, debug it, then paste it into FF3

So yes I do use PB's debugger

But I understand what you meant and I thank you for trying to help. Yes it's a pain in the @@s but it works. Really PB's debugger is pretty good. Between that, zTrace and the good old msgbox I can muddle my way through

A good debugger wold be a major addition to FF3 but well worth it.

Thank you,

Doug

[Marc van Cauwenberghe]

Whatever happened to anteater by Philipp E. Weidmann?

Marc

[Paul Squires]

Philipp released a couple of test versions and the reaction to it was a little overwhelming for him. I don't think that he was ready to hear criticisms and bug reports (albeit, the people reporting the problems were genuinely trying to help). He closed the project shortly thereafter and actually got out of programming altogether it seems. He never did provide the source code to the project.

[Roger Garstang]

It is a shame when people get too attached to their apps.  I've worked with a lot of people like that...the guy over at WYSIWYG Web Builder is that way and it is annoying trying to tell them how to fix things.  Sure, I hate when there are bugs in my app because it makes me and my testing look bad, but I fix it and move on.

[Douglas McDonald]

Its not all that bad. Most of my programming is firmware with MCU's so I have to be clever debugging, Blink an LED here or bang a BIT there to let me know whats going on. Its that or buy a high dollar IDC & software. I would just like to see good debugging in FF3, don't get me wrong, I understand it would be a MAJOR project and probably beyond the scope of what FF3 is designed for. It is a Wish list after all.

Doug

[Haakon Birkeland]

True Douglas.

Doing most of my coding in ASP (mostly Classic), I have learned to rely (read depend) on similar solutions as you have.