Hi all,
I'm new to EPIC but I've found it very useful.
Am I wrong or the user guide is not up to date?
However, I'm trying to understand how variables are accessible and inspectable during debugging.
I'm running:
- eclipse 3.5.0 on OSX
- epic 0.6.35
- perl 5.8.6
- padwalker 1.7

While debugging perl programs what usually happens is that some variables are not available for inspection on the "variables" panel. Is there a menu/configuration/whatever I can do to let the Epic+Debugger show at least the variables I'm currently working with ? (of course I've selected the right stack frame)

Some of the menu suggested in documentation (user guide) -- like "variables view"->show perl local variables -- are not available on Epic 0.6.35.

Moreover every time I try to configure a "watch expression" I receive <<watch expressions not supported>> in the "Expressions panel". Are the really available? How do you use/enable them?

And finally, the following menu items aren't available:
- Run->watch
- Run->inspect
- Run->Display
They are grayed out.

Regards.

The user guide might be slightly outdated, however "Show Local Variables" should be there. In fact, I just checked with Eclipse 3.5 and EPIC 0.6.35 and the option appears where it should. It starts greyed off, but becomes available as soon as a debugger session is started (it has to be so for technical reasons).

Watch expressions are not implemented. The only reason you see them at all is that they are part of the Eclipse debug framework. The same is true for the other grayed out options.

By the way, another way to inspect values of variables is to use the "Perl Expression View" where you can enter and run any Perl code snippet within the context of the selected stack frame. However, it should not be necessary just for viewing local (that is, lexical, "my") variables.

Ok, thanks! Perl Expression view is quite interesting, considering you can run code in the current context :)
And finally, I've also found the menu for "Show perl local variables": I was using the right_mouse_click on the Variables view instead of  the "View menu", sorry for the confusion.

Epic is really really interesting :)

Regards.

Padwalker 1.9 doesn't work on eclipse 3.4.2 on Mac with EPIC 0.6.35. Nor does it work in many other configurations. You receive many, many bugs and complaints about it because the implementation and documentation are unreliable and incorrect. Time to fix.

I'm eagerly awating your patch in this matter.

(PadWalker 1.9, Eclipse 3.4.1, EPIC 0.6.35, Linux working fine.)

The next edition of the user guide should discuss conditional breakpoints.  They aren't mentioned in the current user guide and I wasn't seeing the Breakpoint Properties option when I right-clicked on a breakpoint, so I assumed that conditional breakpoints were not available.  Had the user guide mentioned conditional breakpoints I might not have had as much trouble finding out about conditional breakpoints in EPIC.

dougwong55, these are good points, but I'm swamped with work. You can give it a shot by checking out org.epic.doc module from the CVS repository and sending me back the edited version of guide.xml (along with any new screenshot images). I used the free version of 'xxe' to edit guide.xml, it's in docbook format.