Class Debug.Inspect

Description

Allows for interactive debugging and live data structure inspection in both single- and multi-threaded programs. Creates an independent background thread that every pollinterval will show a list of running threads. Optionally, a triggersignal can be specified which allows the dump to be triggered by a signal.

Example: In the program you'd like to inspect, insert the following one-liner:

Debug.Inspect("/tmp/test.pike");

Then start the program and keep it running. Next you create a /tmp/test.pike with the following content:

void create() {
 werror("Only once per modification of test.pike\n");
}

int main() {
 werror("This will run every iteration\n");
 werror("By returning 1 here, we disable the stacktrace dumps\n");
 return 0;
}

void destroy() {
 werror("destroy() runs just as often as create()\n");
}

Whenever you edit /tmp/test.pike, it will automatically reload the file.

Variable _callback: string|function(void:void) Debug.Inspect._callback
Description: Either the callback function which is invoked on each iteration, or the name of a file which contains a class which is (re)compiled automatically and called on each iteration.
See also: create

Variable _loopthread: Thread.Thread Debug.Inspect._loopthread
Description: The inspect-thread. It will not appear in the displayed thread-list.

Variable pollinterval: int Debug.Inspect.pollinterval
Description: The polling interval in seconds, defaults to 4.

Variable triggersignal: int Debug.Inspect.triggersignal
Description: If assigned to, it will allow the diagnostics inspection to be triggered by this signal.

Method create: Debug.Inspect Debug.Inspect(string|function(void:void)|void cb)
Description: Starts up the background thread.
Parameter cb: Specifies either the callback function which is invoked on each iteration, or the name of a file which contains a class which is (re)compiled automatically with an optional main() method, which will be called on each iteration. If the main() method returns 0, new stacktraces will be dumped every iteration; if it returns 1, stacktrace dumping will be suppressed.
Note: The compilation and the running of the callback is guarded by a catch(), so that failures (to compile) in that section will not interfere with the running program.
Note: If the list of running threads did not change, displaying the list again will be suppressed.
See also: triggersignal, pollinterval, _loopthread, _callback, Debug.globals