User manual

Using the Emulator as a Debugger

5.5.5 Setting Up Trace in MPLAB IDE

The trace buffer can hold up to 256K bytes of information and can be set to a value up

to that maximum (see Section 4.8.3 “Instrumented Trace Tab”). The trace buffer is

circular, so data will wrap if the maximum is exceeded.

• To record a PC location, click on or highlight a line of code and then right click to

select “Insert Line Trace” from the pop-up menu. This causes the following line to

be inserted above to the selected line:

__TRACE(id);

where id is a line trace number auto-generated during the build.

• The recording of a variable value is performed much in the same way. First high-

light the variable name or expression and then right click to select “Log Selected

Value” from the pop-up menu. This causes the following line to be inserted above

the line containing the variable:

__LOG(id,selected variable);

where id is a log number auto-generated during build and selected variable

is the highlighted variable.

• To remove a trace point, simply highlight and then delete the Trace/Log macro.

5.5.6 Running Trace

1. Rebuild the project (Project>Build All).

2. After rebuilding, if there are trace macros in code, a Warning dialog will ask, “File

has been modified. Do you want to reload?”. Click Yes. When you examine your

code, you will find that all ids have been replaced with unique numbers.

3. Reprogram the device (Debugger>Program

4. Run the program and then halt, or set a breakpoint to halt.

5. Select View>Trace

to view the trace data (Section 5.7.10 “Trace Window”) or

right click and in the Trace window and select “Reload”.

Repeat these steps each time you change a trace point.

Note: Inserting a macro into code may modify the logic flow of the program.

Please be sure that braces are present where necessary.

Note: On the Project Manager toolbar, select “Debug” from the drop-down

list.

Note: To disable this warning and automatically reload, select

Configure>Settings

, Other tab, and check “Automatically reload files

that were modified outside of the IDE”. Then click OK.