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Debugging

This section describes general ACIS application debugging techniques.

Topics include:

ENTITY Class Debug Method

The ENTITY class (and each class derived from it) contains a method called debug_ent that is called to dump the instance's data for debugging. The method ENTITY::debug_ent is implemented as:

void ENTITY::debug_ent(FILE* fp) const
{
       // Start with this entity's identifier
       debug_header(this, fp);
       // Now the entity data.
       if (fp != NULL)
      {
           debug_title("Rollback pointer", fp);
           debug_pointer(rollback_ptr, fp);
           debug_newline(fp);
       }
       debug_new_pointer("Attribute list", attrib(), fp);
       // Put out anything from the unknown text.
       text_ptr->debug_ent(fp);
}
// This method calls several functions that dump data using fprintf. For example:
void debug_title(char const* title, FILE* fp)
{
       if (fp != NULL)
      {
           if (title == NULL)
               title = "";
           fprintf(fp, "\t%-16.16s: ", title);
       }
}

The following general debug routines are used by the debug_ent methods to print out various types of values:

debug_dist
Prints a real representing a signed distance. It is considered to be zero if its magnitude is less than SPAresabs.
debug_newline
Prints a new line character.
debug_norm
Prints a real representing a normalized, dimensionless quantity. It considered to be zero if its magnitude is less than SPAresnor.
debug_pointer
Prints a pointer. By default, prints this as a relative address. If the option debug_absolute_addresses is on, an absolute address is used.
debug_pointer_str
Prints a pointer as a string. By default, prints this as a relative address. If the option debug_absolute_addresses is on, an absolute address is used.
debug_real
Prints a real number with appropriate precision.
debug_time
Prints the debugging time difference. This is the amount of time since the last call to this function or to the debug_time_init function.
debug_time_init
Initializes the debugging time.

debug_file_ptr

This is a global which defines the default location for many of ACIS internal debugging tools. By default, debug_file_ptr is initialized to stdout.

Error and Warning Messages

The following C++ functions can be called by applications to find and print error messages once an error has occurred (these and other error handling functions are described in the section Error Handling):

find_err_entry find_err_ident find_err_mess
find_err_module print_warnerr_mess get_warnings
init_warnings

 

 

Run-Time Debugging

Many software environments provide interactive run-time debuggers that allow you to stop execution of the program, examine variables, call functions, etc. (for example, in the UNIX environment a common debugger is called dbx).

Several functions have been defined in the ACIS software to aid debugging with such a debugger. These functions are not linked into the system by default, because they are not called by any ACIS functions. To access these functions, you must force the linkage of the file SPAkern/kernel_sg_husk_debug.m/src/sg_debug.cpp. The functions provided in this file include:

dbuvec
Debug a SPAunit_vector
dbvec
Debug a SPAvector
dbpos
Debug a SPAposition
dbtransf
Debug a SPAtransf
dbcurve
Debug a curve
dbpcurve
Debug a pcurve
dbsurface
Debug a surface
dbbs2_curve
Debug a bs2_curve
dbbs3_curve
Debug a bs3_curve
dbbs3_surface
Debug a bs3_surface
dbedge
Print info about an EDGE
dbcoedge
Print info about a COEDGE
dbbs2c
Print info about a bs2_curve
dbbs3c
Print info about a bs3_curve
bs2_curve_step_eval
Evaluate a bs2_curve at increments
bs3_curve_step_eval
Evaluate a bs3_curve at increments
dblaw
Debug a law
dbent
Debug an ENTITY
dbentall
Debug this ENTITY and its siblings and children
dbentallsz
Get the size for this ENTITY and its siblings and children
dbentkids
Debug this ENTITY and its children
dbentkidsz
Get the size for this ENTITY and its children
dbsave
Save an ENTITY to dbfile
dblist
Debug an ENTITY_LIST
dblistent
Debug an ENTITY_LIST
dbdbg
Turn on debugging module
dbopti
Pass integer to option
dboptd
Pass double to option
dboptc
Pass string to option

The following output streams are used by these functions:

dbfile
Debug output stream stream
dbout
stdout output stream
dberr
stderr output stream

Scheme Debugging Extensions

Several Scheme extensions are provided to facilitate debugging. These include:

debug:all-modules
Sets the debug level for all modules.
debug:file
Sets the debug output device.
debug:list-modules
Displays the current debug level for all modules.
debug:module
Sets the debugging level for a particular module.

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