HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
Chapter 1 Introducing HP Symbolic Debugger/iX
The HP Symbolic Debugger is an interactive tool that assists you in
finding errors in programs written in high-level programming languages.
On most terminals, the HP Symbolic Debugger uses the full screen. The
screen is divided into areas that let you view source code, commands that
you enter and command and program output. When you work with the
debugger, you use the same language constructs that are used in the
program you're debugging.
The HP Symbolic Debugger lets you:
View source code You can view any program source line readily.
Display and modify variables You can view the value of any type of data item in
the program and you can display it in the format
that is most appropriate. When necessary, you can
change the value of a data item.
Trace program flow You can execute one or more statements at one time,
allowing you to closely examine program flow and
data areas. If the program is large, you might
prefer to set breakpoints at certain statements in
the program. When the breakpoints occur, you can
examine data areas and alter them if necessary. If
your program contains several procedure calls, you
might want to display the program stack to trace
those calls.
Capture and rerun a debugger If you think you might need to retrace your steps
session during a debugger session, you can have the debugger
automatically record your session commands in a
file. Then, at a later time, you can replay those
commands. This playback feature can save you time
because it contains the "trail" of commands that led
to a given program state.
Execute debugger commands before You can have the debugger execute one or more
each source statement commands before it executes each source statement in
the program. These commands, called assertions, can
save you time when you need to examine execution
progress one line at a time.