On 02/08/2013 05:13 AM, Pulkit Mehrotra wrote:
hello,
I was having some problems in debugging C codes assocaited with R-packages.
I don't have much experience with debugging tools used in C language. Is
there any methods similar to R-debugging tools such as browser ,debug etc
which can be used to debug such C files.
I was using the foreign package and found a bug in reading dta files
containing empty strings "" in the data. I was able to find where the error
originated in the R file but was unable to do so for the C files.
Any help would be deeply appreciated.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
For debugging package code at the C level, one usually starts (on non-Windows)
by installing the package without any compiler optimizations, e.g., by following
RShowDoc("R-admin")
section 6.3.3. setting for instance
CFLAGS="-g -O0"
in .R/Makevars.
Then when the bug is isolated and easily produced in a script buggy.R start R
with a C-level debugger such as gdb (this is an old-school command-line style
debugger, not to everyone's taste)
R -d gdb -f buggy.R
You'll end up at the gdb prompt
gdb>
and a typical operation is to (r)un or (c)ontinue execution
gdb> r
to run buggy.R. You'll end up back in C when there is a segfault, or you press
cntrl-C, or when you've inserted a breakpoint at some C-level function that you
suspect is buggy, e.g.,
> ^C
gdb> b some_buggy_fun
gdb> c
When you do end up back in the debugger, you can print C variables or the C
representation of R variables
gdb> p c_var
gdb> call Rf_PrintValue(some_R_variable)
go (u)p and (d)own the call stack, etc. See
gdb> help
and of course our mutual friend Google.
But this is not for the faint of heart and requires some C-level familiarity. It
might also be possible to spot the bug with
R -d valgrind -f buggy.R
which runs quite slowly and will also require C familiarity to interpret output.
Again it is helpful to run the buggy code with a package that has been installed
without compiler optimizations. See section 4.3 of RShowDoc("R-exts")
Good luck!
Martin
with regards,
Pulkit Mehrotra
[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
______________________________________________
R-help@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
--
Computational Biology / Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
1100 Fairview Ave. N.
PO Box 19024 Seattle, WA 98109
Location: Arnold Building M1 B861
Phone: (206) 667-2793
______________________________________________
R-help@r-project.org mailing list
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
