Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 19:26:38 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: Alan Wilson <alan DOT wilson AT wilshire DOT com>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: What is a debugger
In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19970219165043.006cbc8c@delilah>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.970219192027.23806D-100000@is>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


On Wed, 19 Feb 1997, Alan Wilson wrote:

> I'm fairly new to DJGPP and programming and I've seen several posts
> regarding something called a debugger.  What is a debugger? And what does it
> do?

Debugger lets you set breakpoints in your program (where the program will 
stop), run it line by line, examine and set values of variables, and much 
more.  When your program doesn't work as expected or crashes, a debugger 
is an invaluable tool to find the bugs which cause this.

> Does DJGPP come with one?  Rhide?  EMACS?

DJGPP comes with 5 different debuggers.  RHIDE has an integrated debugger,
yes.  (Emacs has a debugger interface, but it doesn't work on MSDOS.) Read
chapter 12 and section 4.5 of the DJGPP FAQ list (available as
v2/faq210b.zip from the same place you get DJGPP) for more info about the
debuggers that come with DJGPP. 

> Is it necessary to use one?  

That's up to you.  You can always use `printf' debugging, but some things 
are very difficult to see without a debugger.