Re: [Bashdb-devel] introduction (James Michael DuPont)

[R. B. <ro...@pa...>]

James Michael DuPont writes:
 > On that note, do you have a way to -save-temps like gcc does, like +x
 > so that you can capture the fully post-preprocessed files?

This debugger is a little bit different in design from earlier BASH or
Korn shell debuggers such the one described in the O'Reilly books.
While the others wrote a new script with debugger routines prepended, 
this one doesn't. 

Or more bluntly: there is no preprocessed source. 

Here's why.  When one changes the source code you need to have a
mapping from the things you've changed into the the original
text. That is you are keeping a mapping of a set of lies around so you
can keep the story you tell the users straight. The more you change
the more lying going on. This lie mapping is overhead and adds
complexity. As in normal life, the fewer lies I have to tell the
easier things are.

(In truth, though there are things that the debugger does lie about. For
example the call stack omits the debugger routines from the top of
the stack when reporting the contents .)