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Debugging tools and practices in Windows?

6 messages · Duncan Murdoch, Javier Luraschi, Tomas Kalibera +2 more

Original
Javier Luraschi
# 
Hello r-devel, could someone share the tools and practices they use to
debug the core R sources in Windows?

For instance, I would like to set a breakpoint in `gl_loadhistory` and
troubleshoot from there.

Thanks in advance - Javier Luraschi
Duncan Murdoch
#
On 23/02/2017 1:36 PM, Javier Luraschi wrote:
You're talking about debugging the C code rather than the R code, I think.

These days I mostly avoid debugging in Windows, but when I have to do 
it, I use gdb.  There used to be a front end for it (Insight) that 
worked in Windows, but I don't think it works with our current gdb 
build.  Google names lots of other front ends, but I haven't tried any 
of them in Windows.

The other choice is the old fashioned method:  add lots of Rprintf() 
statements to the source and recompile.

Duncan Murdoch
Javier Luraschi
# 
Right, I'm talking about C code.

Do you remember if you had to set specific CFLAGS or other settings to get
gdb working? I wasn't able to get gdb() working with the standard build
settings.

Otherwise, Rprintf() would work for sure.

Thank you!



On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 10:55 AM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com>
wrote:

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Tomas Kalibera
    

    

      
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The R for Windows FAQ suggests "make DEBUG=T" and has some more hints
https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/rw-FAQ.html

Tomas

        
On 02/23/2017 08:10 PM, Javier Luraschi wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Ray Donnelly
    

    

      
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On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 7:49 PM, Tomas Kalibera <tomas.kalibera at gmail.com>
wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
I feel Qt Creator provides a good enough UI for debugging things on Windows
(it allows you to debug externally-built executables).

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Andre Mikulec
    

    

      
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I have not tried this in several years, but inside the Makefiles of the R source code, the following will replace the (non)debugging flags with debugging flags.


This (still) may or may not work ...


find . -type f -name 'M*k*' -exec sed -i 's/-O3/-O0 -ggdb3/g' {} \;
find . -type f -name 'M*k*' -exec sed -i 's/-O2/-O0 -ggdb3/g' {} \;
find . -type f -name 'M*k*' -exec sed -i 's/-shared/-shared -O0 -ggdb3/g' {} \;

I was sort of fresh at the this debugging when I started gdb debugging and time has passed by, so the recommended (current) 'R on windows' compiler flags can be found in the g++ documentation for the correct g++ used to compile the current R on Windows.

Andre Mikulec
Andre_Mikulec at Hotmail.com