"Dick Moores" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote > The only debugging I've done so far is to put in print statements > where I want to see what's happening.
Thats OK for basic stuff but for complex things you can wind up with an awful lot of printing going on! > However, I just discovered that my excellent (IMO) Python editor, > Ulipad, comes with WinPdb, and I'm thinking it's about time > I learned how to use a debugger. Everyone should, they are wonderful tools provided you stay in control. > But first, could I get some reviews here of WinPdb Its very good, I think the one in eclipse/PyDev is slightly better but its close. Its certainly better than either IDLE or Pythonwin. The main thing in using debuggers is to avoid the temptation to just start the program and step all the way through. Learn to use a combination of break points - to target a suspect function or control structure and watches - the equivalent of your print statements. If the debugger supports conditional watches so much the better, then you only get output when the value goes to a particular condition. Once you've broken the flow at a suspect function and shown a known error via a watch set another break point at the next level up then rerun to there (conditional break points are great too but I don't think pdb does those...) only then do you need to start stepping line by line until you see the bug occur. At that point give up on the debugger and engage your brain! BTW If you can get a copy of my book (the paper one - a library mebbe?) there is a chapter in there about debugging which includes the use of raw pdb... HTH, Alan G _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
