Re: [Anjuta-list] Basic problems with Anjuta

[Sébastien Granjoux <seb sfo free fr>]

Hi Steve,

Steve a écrit :
> The User's Manual, para 5.1.1 says "Choose the menu item Debug->Run Target..." but there is no Debug menu
> item. After some investigation, I found that if I go to Edit->Preferences select the Installed plugins tab
> and select the Debugger Manager plugin, then Debug becomes an option in the menu. Shouldn't the User Manual
> mention this? 

Almost all functions in Anjuta are handled by plugin so it's common to 
do this. Anyway, I think I have already read such request, so I will 
update the documentation.

> I was also having a problem that when I closed Anjuta and then re-opened it, the Debug option disappeared
> and I would have to repeat the process. I have now found that this does not always happen but I cannot
> find any pattern or specific reason for what causes this.

All loaded plugins are load in a project session file when you exit 
Anjuta. But it means that you have to enable the debugger plugin for 
each project. If it doesn't work like this please put a bug report in 
bugzilla here:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=anjuta

> So I select Debug->Run Target, select "Run in terminal" and "stop at the beginning". main.c opens
> (after selecting an editor) highlighs the get_set_locale() line with a yellow arrow next to a bolded
> line number (52) in the margin. I hit F5 to step into the function but we step over the function to the
> gtk_init line. The highlighting, arrow and bolding step down one line. Presumably, we do not step into
> gtk_set_locale() because Anjuta doesn't know where to find the source file? No advisory messages?

I think it is a common behavior. F5 steps into a function only if gdb 
get debugging information about it, which is normally not the case for 
common libraries functions. It's not only the source file which is 
missing, but the information about the link between a particular place 
in the code and the source files. If you really want it is possible to 
get debugging information by recompiling the corresponding library with 
debugging informations.

There is no message about this. I think that most of the time you don't 
want to dig into such function. I don't remember if other debugger gives 
such message. I don't think it is possible to do it with gdb.

> Now we get to the main problem. I hit F5 again and the app window appears, the yellow arrow and highlighting
> dissappear and the bolding moves to line 50, ie up 3 lines to a blank line. I read a couple of days ago that
> someone else was having problems where the debugger was not following the source code because of optimization.
> I looked in the Makefiles and changed -O2 to -O0, rebuilt and tried again but I get the same problems.

Yes. Instead of changing the Makefile, it's better to change the 
Makefile.am file or run ./configure 'CFLAG=-g -O0' instead because 
autotools can recreate the Makefile from Makefile.am. That's fine for 
just a test though.

> I've tried this exercise several times and sometimes the yellow arrow and highlighting don't appear at all.
> The one thing that does alwasy happen is that the debugger does not 
stop when stepping into the gtk_init line.
> It appears to run on into the gtk_main loop.

I'm not sure you can step into gtk_init function. I think a easier way 
to stop the debugger is to put breakpoint into your program.

> Am I missing some vital step here? Do I have something mis-configured?

I don't think you missed something here. I think that you rather try to 
do things those are not possible now or run into bugs in the debugger 
plugin. If your program is small enough, perhaps you can attach to a bug 
report and tell me exactly what you do (press this key, click on this 
button...). I will try to do the same and tell you if it is a bug or not.

Regards,

Sébastien