C and C++ SoftBench User's Guide

Using SoftBench Debugger

Tracing Program Flow

Chapter 7204

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 yourprogram. Creating abasic trace issimilar 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 timeas DDE ﬁndsall the appropriate procedures. The labelon

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.