Change the display format of the variable
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Hi,
I'm an embedded programmer, usually working with small microcontrollers and I experienced Dev-C++ to be a usefull tool for simulating code in an windows enviroment.
In the embedded world are often HEX-values of interest. How can I change the display format of the variables in a debug watch?
Do I have to install frontend "Insight"?
Thanks for your help!
Insight will certainly display watch values in Hex.
Insight is more than a front-end. It does not use the vanilla GDB used by Dev-C++'s rudamentry front end. It is intergrated with its own version modified for tighter integration.
Insight is a better option for debugging all-round. It can be integrated with Dev-C++ via Tools menu configuration.
Select Tools|Configure tools, Add a new menu item, with the following fields:
Title: Debug with Insight
Program: <EXECPATH>bin\Insight\bin\usr\bin\insight.exe
(...or whever you have installed Insight. <EXEPATH> is a macro that the menu tool recognises ad the bin directory of your Dev-C++ installation)
Working directory: <PROJECTPATH>
Parameters: <EXENAME>
Now when you select teh new menu item it will launch Insight and load your current project.
Clifford.
where to find this insight-debug-tool?
http://www.bloodshed.net/dev/packages/index.html
The notes warn that installing it will disable the Dev-C++ integrated debugger. Firstly, I have tried it and it does not seem to do so, (this might depend on not installing it in the dev-cpp\bin folder); and secondly, who cares, that debugger sucks in any case ;-)
Clifford.
Thx!
I just installed and tested it and it looks much better + seems to work faster than the integrated dev-c debugger.
I'm not really experienced in using debuggers, so there was a thing that confused me. To debug a prog with insight one need to press 'Run' and the applikation is coming up at the background and function-results were shown in the console-window while stepping through. I'm wondering how this will work with a w32 api application? afaik the orig. dev-cpp debugger doesnt run an applikation for real.
Both use the same GDB base code. I am not sure why the integrated debugger seems so flaky, but I guess the difficulty of effectively controlling GDB externally is why Insight uses an much tighter integration between gdb and the GUI.
I've not tried using Insight on a Windows app. I too work primarily in embedded systems. However it should work.
Clifford.
meanwhile I tried and it stucked and hung up unfortunatly. It works wonderful on console apps nethertheless.
I am not convinced of the quality or provenance of that particular binary distribution of Insight. (now I tell you!).
There is an Insight source DevPak available via WebUpdate, but I have not tried it. I have read elsewhere that building Insight under MinGW rather than Cygwin is not straight forward (or even possible), but I am not convinced.
I have recent sucessfully built an Insight cross-debugger for ARM under Cygwin. I might take a look at building a native tool (under Cygwin or MinGW), but others here have tried before me, so don't hold your breath!
If you want to have a go yourself, take a look at http://sources.redhat.com/insight/
Clifford
Thank you Clifford, I really appreciate your support on this forum.
I installed the Insight-DevPak, but there arent any changes in the menus after that, so I tried to debug like usual and it 'seems' to work faster and more stable than before. Don't know if Insight is really used now anyway ;)
Following the ReadMe I doubt it:
"This package is structured to not interfere with Dev-C++ and for easy maintenance."
But, who knows? ;)
Thank you in any case for the infos!
Thanks for your replies!
I tried out Insight and it seems to work.
In any way, are you going to change te builtin debugger, so that watches can be displayed in hex?
For example if you want to watch an array of unsigned char the display of these values is rather strange.