Debug Console?!

WanabeCoder · Post by **WanabeCoder** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:25 pm

Erm.. how can I debug my program if I can't compile it? >.>
(visual c++ 6.0 std)

monster · Post by **monster** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:37 pm

you can't

Post by **DWORD** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:38 pm

Erm.. you can't! But I guess you want to fix it, so it can compile. Look at the error messages that the compiler throws at you, and if you can't figure them out, try posting them.

WanabeCoder · Post by **WanabeCoder** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:40 pm

Well.. how teh (word) do I enter /Zm800 if I cant type it in debug >_>

Edit : And whats the point of debugging if your program can compile?
Ugh.. microsoft sucks.
Linux++;

monster · Post by **monster** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:56 pm

to fix bugs

Post by **haffax** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 2:23 pm

Don't make uneducated guesses about Linux' abilities. Debugging Ogre and programs using it, is much, much easier and more comfortable under Windows.
Your problem is probably VC6, a seven year old IDE/compiler. Compare it with the tools you had in Linux seven years ago.

Go buy a new one, like VC.Net2003 or wait for VC.Net2005.

Post by **Kojack** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:22 pm

If your program compiles, that just means that the compiler could compile your code (no syntax errors), it doesn't mean that the end result will do what you want.
Debugging is fixing flaws in a program which cause it to run incorrectly (wrong results, memory leaks, crashes, etc).

Been a while since I've had VC6 installed, but it should be possible to add the /Zm option to the project properties (I'm positive it had an "Additional Options" text box like VS.Net does).

What's really fun is debugging a program on a freaky OS, with a crappy compiler, with no debugger, when the bug is that the program suddenly dies after around 40 hours of continuous running.

Stress*=1000.0f;

Post by **:wumpus:** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 6:16 pm

Kojack wrote: What's really fun is debugging a program on a freaky OS, with a crappy compiler, with no debugger, when the bug is that the program suddenly dies after around 40 hours of continuous running.
Stress*=1000.0f;

Looks like a float exponent overflow

AssiDragon · Post by **AssiDragon** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 1:22 am

Corruption errors are also nice to debug. Sometimes they appear, sometimes not...

monster · Post by **monster** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 1:45 am

MSVC's difference between debug and release modes; bugs you don't see in debug do appear in release, but obviously then you can't debug them, arrrgh!

Post by **haffax** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 2:07 am

monster wrote:MSVC's difference between debug and release modes; bugs you don't see in debug do appear in release, but obviously then you can't debug them, arrrgh!

These are most often missing initializations, maybe malloc/new/whatsoever memset it to zero beforehand.

monster · Post by **monster** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 2:10 am

i know, but it's very annoying

Post by **Kojack** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 2:18 am

A few times recently I've encountered bugs which don't occur in release, don't occur in an F5 run in debug mode, but crash the game every time in a Ctrl-F5 run in debug mode. Tricky, since an F5 run is the one that shows you where errors occur.

When freaky stuff like that happens, first thing I tell the students to do is Rebuild All.

You'd be surprised (or not) how many times that fixes bugs (especially things like stack corruptions or when single stepping jumps around in abnormal ways), Visual Studio tends to forget to recompile files which need to recompiled.

The main thing to remember between debug and release runs is that in debug, all allocated memory is filled with special values, but in release mode it's just got whatever was already there in memory (ie. random stuff).

alphabeta · Post by **alphabeta** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 6:05 am

Debugging is just the act of going step by step through a program to find what's causing a problem, which obviously can't happen if the program won't compile (much less run)

Look at the errors your compiler throws at you. Try vs2005 betas if you need a new ide, but keep in mind with visual studio, the ide has ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA about the real importance of errors. It's prioritization will lead you in loops, so take a look at the order in the output window once in a while (fixing the first error might fix all 165

)

epopov · Post by **epopov** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 8:29 am

monster wrote:MSVC's difference between debug and release modes; bugs you don't see in debug do appear in release, but obviously then you can't debug them, arrrgh!

Yes you can, you just have to enable the building of .pdb files (one option to check on the C++ tab and another in the link tab, I think).
It's not as easy as in debug mode to debug in release mode because of some optimisations performed by the compiler that can reorder lines or group several source lines in one 'assembly block', but having the source code at hand is definitively better than dealing with the raw assembly !

zarthrag · Post by **zarthrag** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 10:34 am

Most compilers take a turn for the worse when you (ab)use templates. If I had a dollar for everytime VS7.1 iced over (ICE = Internal Compiler Error; a really cryptic error handed to you when you're too good of a day.)