Skip to main content

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] [List Home]
RE: [platform-debug-dev] Debugger improvement ideas/ wish list

Hey guys,

 

I think it would be great if we could get an update from these discussions and from the platform debug team in general at the CDT Summit in September. The CDT obviously relies on everything that happens there. Details on the conference are here:

 

   http://wiki.eclipse.org/CDT/summitfall2007

 

It would be great if a platform debug committer could attend. Thanks!

 

Doug Schaefer, QNX Software Systems
Eclipse CDT Project Lead, http://cdtdoug.blogspot.com


From: platform-debug-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:platform-debug-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pawel Piech
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 10:52 PM
To: Eclipse Platform Debug component developers list.
Subject: Re: [platform-debug-dev] Debugger improvement ideas/ wish list

 

Hi Darin,
I named it a wish list because I started out with: "Wouldn't it be great if we could..."  So this is really just a brainstorming list without regard for effort or scope.  It was mostly intended as a way for to start a discussion about the planning process for the next release.  Speaking more directly though, do you have plans for having any phone or face-to-face meetings for such planning?  I remember you've mentioned in the past that such a meeting could be very productive for hashing out some of the finer details of UI and workflow.  If so, the best timing for us would probably be rather soon, in mid August, as other Eclipse meetings (CDT, ESE, etc) quickly approach in months ahead.

Thanks,
Pawel

Darin Wright wrote:



> Hi All,
> Doug Gaff asked me to follow up after the recent Platform Debug team
> committer diversity discussion with a general list of tasks that
> Wind River would like to work on in the Platform.  Here is the list
> we came up with.  
>

Thanks, Pawel. If this is a "list of tasks that Wind River would like to work on", then perhaps it should be a "work list" rather than a "wish list". Than again, from a platform point of view, it is also our "wish" that these are things that Wind River will work on :-)

I've added my comments below.

> Embedded/Remote debugging
> Better Integration with Target Manager
> This is probably more of a TM task but it's also part of an over-all
> debugger experience:

> Ability to drive debugger views from within TM
> Create a GDB debugger sub-system to configure GDB and to manage GDB sessions.
> Standard launch dialog pages for configuring TM.
> Configure new targets and sub-systems
> Download using ftp
> Run shell scripts
> etc.

These do sound like target management issues. Other members in the diversity discussion also expressed interest in generic support for deployment to targets before debugging/running an application. Would the ftp part of this be even more general, or should it be part of debug?

> Better breakpoint management in a multi-core environment
> Create a first-class object representing breakpoint "scope".  I.e.
> which targets/threads should a breakpoint should be installed with.

> Create a linking between projects, launches and breakpoint scopes.

This is also interesing for Java, as users often get confused when they have duplicate source files in the workspace, or files with the same name in the workspace. Setting a Java breakpoint results in any matching qualified type name to install the breakpoint (no matter which project the type originated from). It would be nice to avoid scoping breakpoints by specific model objects (IDebugTarget, etc)., since we no longer require a model to implement the standard interfaces.

It would also be nice to open the breakpoints view to the flexible hierarchy scheme... but there are issues since we have added grouping mechanisms.

> Power User features
> *Scripting/Macros
> A feature for executing a list of "actions" is already implemented
> in CDT.  It could be made more generic and moved to platform.

> Scripts should be capable of:
> Debugger operations
> Run control
> Breakpoint control
> Reading/Writing memory
> UI operations
> Showing data in views.  This could be problematic with existing
> views architecture, perhaps "quick" views could be used instead.

> Positioning editor.
> Users should be able to "record" scripts based on a series of
> actions in the debugger.

> I think the new command framework could provide some of the
> infrastructure for this feature.


The new command framework may help for generic record/replay of commands. However, the debugger adds complexity, since it operates asynchronously. The replay would have wait for commands to finish asynchronously (and I don't think that's built into the command framework).

What the is the motivation for "positioning the editor"? In terms of stepping/displaying source - this happens as a reaction to debugging (and would still work as a side effect of scripting).

> *Common API for creating breakpoints
> Currently, there is no single non-UI API for creating breakpoints.  
> This is a blocking feature for any kind of meaningful scripting
> support.  We should investigate to see if it makes sense to provide
> such an API.


This is tricky, as breakpoint creation is model specific. However, we do support import/export of breakpoints (not API yet), and we might be able to use this feature to support breakpoint creation via a script. Basically, we persist breakpoint marker attribtues, and recreate the markers/breakpoints (as is done in a workspace shutdown/restart).

> Integration with static symbols
> Currently static symbol databases and debugger symbol data retrieved
> from object files don't mix very well.  We should investigate to see
> if it would be possible to integrate the UI of the two a little bit
> better.  But currently, the only use cases I can think of are

> Creating method breakpoints from the outline views and from the
> editor by right-clicking on the method declaration.

> Showing method breakpoints in the editor gutter based on static
> symbol information.

> Provide access to static (in addition to debugger) symbol
> information when creating a symbol breakpoint or choosing the object
> entry point.


I'm not sure how symbol stuff fits into the platform.

> *"Quick" views for debugger data
> Quick outline (Ctrol-O) and type hierarchy (Ctrl-T) views accessible
> from the editor, as well as javadoc toolstips and method completion
> have made the experience of writing java code much more enjoyable.  
> Debugging seems ripe for similar kind of workflow improvement.  Some
> ideas for better debugger workflow are:

> A smart watch view that only shows data relevant to the selected
> context.  It should also be capable of displaying more than just
> variables and registers, such as threads, breakpoint status, memory
> blocks, etc.

> Quick views for Variables, Registers, Watch, and Memory.  Or better
> yet, a quick view version of the smart watch dialog mentioned above.

> Interactive popups in the editor for variable values.  To allow the
> user to drill-down through the data.

> Oddly enough, these ideas may not even require any changes in
> platform, but could be implemented as extensions.


I think these could be created as extensions. Note that the Java debugger does have a popup for inspecting data structures in the editor or else where (select a variable and use the "Inspect" action). This popup-dialog is available in the debug platform as API - see InspectPopupDialog and DebugPopup.

> *Truly integrated Java/C debugging
> By truly integrated, I mean I imagine stepping into a JNI call in
> java and seamlessly transitioning to C debugging.  By seamlessly, I
> mean: the Debug view should have a single debug target, which is
> showing a stack trace with both java and C stack frames.  I think
> the only way we'll achieve this kind of integration is by writing UI
> layer which is reading data from both the Java and C debuggers,
> which I imagine this would be a lot easier to do if the java
> debugger was implemented using the DSF services framework.


Experiments here are certainly interesting and encouraged.

> *User customizable views
> This should mostly just be an extension of DSF view-model
> functionality, but some more platform support may be required.  
> Users should be able to customize the contents in following ways:

> Change the format of labels in Debug views.  The Debug view is
> especially confusing to our users because it shows labels made up of
> strings that repeat each other and use unfamiliar concepts, such as
> launch configuration names and process objects ("the refrigerator icon").

> Change the layout of views
> Let users hide the process ("refrigerator) icon, and channel std-io
> through the debug target instead.

> Let users hide the debug target icon in debug view, and show threads
> directly below the launch node.

> Let users hide the stack frames in Debug view and show a stack trace
> view instead, or use a "quick" view to select the current stack frame.

> Let users hide register groups in register view.
> Let users show a "history" node as a child of variables/registers.

I think most of this is possible with flexible hierarchy.

> Create custom views with custom content, such as
> a stack frame view,
> a history view with a single variable/register
> debug targets view (as opposed to launch history view, i.e. the debug view).
> etc.

The same old problem exists here - i.e. if the content adapter is already owned by someone, no one else can extend it.

> *Pin + Clone
> We seem to have talked about this one for years on end but we still
> don't have a complete picture on how this should work.


Agreed - it needs more thought. I also agree that adding more views to an already crowded perspective is not be the best approach.

> UI Polishing
> *Better UI for breakpoints and IP markers in Editor
> The biggest complaint here is that an instruction pointer can
> obscure a breakpoint and multiple breakpoints on the same line have
> no visual indication.  This is more editor work than debugger work,
> but it's a thorny deficiency in the debugger that has been around
> for a long time.  One possible solution may be a dedicated editor or
> annotation model just for debugging, as opposed to always sharing
> the editor with compiler static analysis, etc.


What would the dedicated editor do differently? I think we should push on this in the text framework.

> *Source Lookup UI Improvements
> The source lookup UI is somewhat clunky by making the user walk a
> huge dialog tree to accomplish simple tasks.  It also lacks certain
> features such as showing a table of source files from the debugger
> and how they map to host source files.


Ah, you noticed... :-)

Darin Wright


 



 
_______________________________________________
platform-debug-dev mailing list
platform-debug-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/platform-debug-dev

 


Back to the top