Thread: Debuggers, how to use?

I am beginning to develop a large interest in using the VC debugger, i hope to learn soon.

how do you get it to show exactly where the program ended. My application keeps crashing, I know it's something stupid but I would be able to find it if it only told me where exactly the app ended.

>i dont have MSVC++, and i dont ever really plan on getting it

It has a great debugger.

I'm working on embedded software projects, I'd like to use a debugger, but I can't. Therefore I have to put a lot of diagnostic functionality in the code, like printf's and it works fine with me.

Whilst on this topic, I am writing a multithreaded, WIN32 application using MSVC++. I have a bug that only occurs quite infrequently and I think it may be a small problem in my thread synchronisation. Is there any way with the MSVC++ debugger that I can view the operation of each thread simultaneously? Would Spy++ help me? I've never really looked at Spy++ but I seem to remember someone on here saying it was useful for WIN32 application debugging. Thanks in advance.

not to stray OT but i wanna ask since u brought it up, what is multithreading? and why are so many people confused by it?

The way I think of it is that it is like running multiple chunks of code, lets say two functions for arguments sake, simultaneously. Obviously they don't actually run simulataneously because a microprocessor can only only do one thing at a time. Windows allocates microprocessor time 'slices' to each thread that you are running so that all your threads, or chunks of code, appear to be running concurrently.

kinda like when a function calls another function? its stepping from one function to the next instead of just main? Sorry if i am misunderstanding.

No. Say the first line of your main function calls function 'A', the program would execute 'A', return from it and then move to the next line, where for our purposes we have function 'B'. So function 'B' wouldn't get a look in till 'A' had finished and returned. now lets make 'A' and 'B' threads. As soon as main has called 'A', 'A' begins executing, but at the same time as our main function is executing. So main goes straight to the next line and calls 'B', which also starts executing. So now we have 3 chunks of code running at the same time, 'A', 'B' and the main function.

ok that makes sense, would it not be less effiecent or prone to problems tho?

Well yeah I guess it might be less efficient in that every time windows allocates processor time to a new thread there is some extra processing involved in doing so. And it can also be quite problematic, you really need to thoroughly test your program, especially if numerous threads work with the same data. One thread might be reading an array whilst another writes to it and that sort of thing. However for some applications, and there are probably only a few, it can be a necessity.