Using SoftBench Debugger

Tracing Program Flow

Tracing Program Flow

SoftBench Debugger's trace functions help you monitor the flow of your program. This can be useful in many situations: perhaps you want to see when your program calls a particular function, or executes certain statements, but you don't want the debugger to stop your program. Tracing simply displays the current location when a trace is hit, and keeps executing your program. Creating a basic trace is similar to adding a printf statement to your program. Traces can also stop your program or can execute DDE commands when they are encountered, similar to breakpoints.

Creating Traces

SoftBench Debugger provides several levels of trace granularity:

•At every procedure entry

•At every procedure exit

•At the entry and exit of every procedure

•Every statement

•Every assembly instruction

Creating a new trace on procedure entry or exit can take a significant amount of time as DDE finds all the appropriate procedures. The label on the "Debugger Input" input box is not sensitive while DDE is working.

Using the Trace Menu

SoftBench Debugger has several menu selections to simplify trace creation. Choose the appropriate option under "Trace: Trace Every" submenu to enable tracing.

Traces can also be enabled only in certain "blocks". DDE allows you to narrow traces to a particular file, C function, or C++ object. See "Help: DDE Reference" for a full explanation of blocks.

Enter the desired block in the "()" input box, and choose the appropriate option under "Trace: Trace Only" submenu to enable tracing.

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Chapter 7