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In the previous article named "Introducing Motor: A Programming IDE for Linux", I covered the basics of software development using Motor. Now I continue with a look at some advanced issues such as debugging, organizing your libraries, version control and a bit more. By the way, I've just released the new 2.0.0 version of Motor, so features appearing in this latest release are also covered in this article.

A Small Address to the Community

Currently, almost all the planned features of Motor have been implemented. Now, I want to address all the GNU programmers who have experience in programming with GTK+/GNOME. I realize that a lot of people work in X, so my next big plan is to make a GNOME-based GUI version of Motor. If you want to help me create a good IDE -- not only for console, but for X too, please contact me and we will work out a strategy together.

Debugging with Motor

Motor has a useful front-end to gdb, a popular Linux debugger. Let's check it out. Start by opening your favorite project to get a quick insight on what happens inside the program in run time. I assume you already have Motor running and you can see the editor window. For a quick look at all the debug commands available, just press F10 and then open the "Debug" sub-menu.

Before You Debug. Important Note

Motor can only debug programs in local console. That means that you need to sit in front of your Linux/FreeBSD/whatever box and work on a local tty. One of those you usually switch with Alt-F1..F12 :) Also you should have a place to run a debug session, a free tty, Just like X-Windows needs a free tty to start X display.

"Step into" and "Trace over"

Even a very minimalist gdb front-end allows you to run a program line-by-line. That usually means you can see the line to be executed highlighted on your screen, then press a key and move to the next line, etc. till the program ends. During that, you can either trace into subroutines called in the line of code or just jump over them to the next line in the current routine. Motor lets you do it very easily. Just start your program, not with "Run" (F12), but with the F8 key. The program starts and then Motor positions and highlights the first line in the main() function of your program. Then, pressing F8 or F7 (remember the difference) you can go through all the program source cycling into 'for' and 'while' constructions, entering and exiting functions, etc.

"Go to cursor" command

This option allows you to stop a program at any line in the code. To do it, just position the cursor on the line you want Motor to stop the program and press F4. The program will execute until this line is reached. Then Motor will let you decide what to do next. You can terminate the debug session with Ctrl-F12.

Breakpoints

A "breakpoint" makes your program stop every time a certain line in the source is reached. To set a breakpoint at the specific line just position the cursor and press Ctrl-B. The line will be highlighted and next time it is passed, motor will stop and let you do further debugging. If you press Ctrl-B on an already highlighted line, breakpoint is removed. A list of the breakpoints can be invoked using Alt-B.

Inspecting Data

Evaluate/Modify Dialog

During debug, you may wish to see values of various variables to get a clear view of what is happening in your code. The easiest way to see a value, evaluate an expression or even modify some data is the "Evaluate/modify" dialog. It is opened with the Alt-E key and contains the following controls: expression to evaluate, its value and the "change" item. Entered expressions are evaluated and their values are displayed. To change the expression or its value, just position on an appropriate item and press "Enter". But sometimes you might want to keep an eye on some variable values all the time as you jump through the source code. "Watches" is a useful feature in this case.

Watches

To watch variables or expression values, you should open the watches window with Alt-W. Here you can add/remove watches or change values of the variables being watched. Press ESC-ESC or Alt-W to switch back to the editor or just Ctrl-D to close the window.

Inspecting Code

Call stack

A backtrace, a summary of how your program got to where it is, or call stack, can be viewed with Alt-S key. It allows you to open an appropriate part of the source code in the editor and view information about each function call, such as parameters, file name and line number. Very useful when you want to find out how long the way to the current line in the source was.

Examining core dump files

Sometimes programs crash with "core dumped" message. Every time you see this message a file named "core" is created in current directory. Program can crash this way due to run-time problems ("segmentation fault" is the most frequent cause) or it can be forced to dump core and terminate with SIGQUIT (usually generated by the SysRq key), for example. So what is core? It's a file that holds all the information about your program before it crashed. It can be loaded then and all the code around the line that crashed as well as the variables can be inspected. Motor also allows you to load a core dump. All you need is to select "Load core dump" in the "Debug" sub-menu and point it to the 'core' file. The information window will be displayed then and if everything went ok, the point in source where the program crashed will be highlighted. Now you can invoke a call stack viewer, etc. Note that you're inspecting a core dump, a still image of your program state, so no further program execution is possible.

Library Projects

All the IDEs I've seen before have had the same problem. If you want to connect your own written library to a project and you are also going to debug it along with your program, you had to include all the library source files into your project. This I will say, is not a very good way. So I decided to solve that inconvenience in Motor. With it, you can easily add the whole library, which is built if needed, every time you recompile a project. It can be easily removed from the project.

A Quick Example

Let's assume you have a library named tools. You created it from a special template named "library/static". Then you write a program and feel the need for this library. What should you do? It's enough just to open the "Project files" dialog, position it on the "Connected libraries" folder and press "Ins" or select "Add" item. The list of library projects is displayed. All you need is to select it here and press Enter. All the necessary paths and file names will be passed to the compiler the next time you try to build the project. The library with all of its attributes can be removed from the project in the same way.

Version Control

Being a Linux developer you must have heard about CVS. It's a powerful version control system for Linux. But I'll explain what it is in a few words for newbies. CVS allows you to keep track of all the changes made to a program source. You can retrieve old versions of your code if some bugs were added with the last modifications. Every change can be commented and put into a history. Lets move on to how motor interacts with CVS.

Preparing a Repository

To be able to use CVS you should have a repository, place to put the stuff. CVS can work though TCP/IP as well as in local mode. Here I'll explain how to create a minimalist local repository. For further information about setting up a CVS TCP/IP server, please consult the CVS documentation and info pages.

First, make sure you have CVS installed in your system by typing cvs on your command line. If you haven't got it, you can download it from its web site at www.cvshome.org.

For example, you want the repository to reside in your home directory in the cvsroot/ sub-dir. To create it, execute the following command.

cvs -d /home/myusername/cvsroot init

Motor and CVS

To be able to use CVS with Motor, first of all you should point it to the repositories you wanna work with. It can be done with the "Motor settings" dialog, invoked either from the project list dialog or from the "File" menu. You can see two options of switch kind here and a list of CVS repositories. Press Ins to add one. A repository specification consists of two parts: access method and path. For our local repository we should specify the following: :local:/home/myusername/cvsroot or just /home/myusername/cvsroot since CVS assumes local mode by default. The other two options in the dialog allow you to enable or disable "auto commit/update changes" made to your projects when you open or close them.

Setting Up the Project Files

Now having at least one repository specified in your configuration, you can easily put your project under version control. Press F10 to activate the menu and select "CVS->Import into CVS" item. You will be asked to select a repository to import a project into. Then wait a while as the project is imported.

Imported. What next?

After importing the files of your project into the CVS repository you can access all the CVS functionality. You can watch and then commit and/or update changes, see the history and check out old releases and modifications.

Checking in and Out

After you select this item in the "Debug" menu, Motor runs CVS to check for modifications in your source and compares your local version with the repository. Then the report is displayed saying what files were changed. In this dialog you can "Update" (synchronize your local copy with the repository getting all the changes and applying them to your local source), "Commit" (send your local changes in the repository) and "Tag a release".

Tagging Releases

This option is useful when you think the source is ok (stable?) and you want to put a milestone to be able to roll back in case any bugs appear because of further modifications. It can be run from several places: from the menu, from the check in/out dialog and from the distribution generation dialog. After you select this item, you are asked for a release name. Note, it must start with a letter. Once a release is tagged, it appears on the release history every time you invoke it.

Release and File Histories

Since the changes and comments are held in the repository, there must be a way to view the history. There are two histories. File history displays a chronological sequence of modifications and comments for the current file open in the editor. With release history you can view and check out either a single file or a whole set of source files from previously tagged releases. Checked out source will replace your local copies and be re-loaded in editor if necessary.

Contributing to Motor Development

As it usually happens with my programs -- any comments, ideas, bug-reports and patches you make while using Motor, are welcome. Mail them to me directly. There is also a section for programs written using Motor at its homepage. If you don't mind listing your program there, you can fill out a form and the information will appear on the motor web site.

About the Author

Konstantin "konst" Klyagin, lives in Kharkov, Ukraine. He is a 4th year student of the Kharkov State Polytechnical University, next year going to get BS in System Analysis. Works as a programmer for the "NIX Solutions" company. Has got about 10 years overall programming expirience. Personal interests relate to computers, networking, programming, IT, Linux, digital innovations and also art, painting, history, politics, heavy music, girls, and having fun. Can be contacted at konst@konst.org.ua. Konst's personal site URL is http://konst.org.ua/.