wish: debugger

tkilshaw

Of course I'd like a full interactive, graphical debugger! But failing that I need some way of getting print statements into rules.

Rules on objects disallow UI interactions, so maybe it could print to one of the many log files.

What I'm asking for is a way to output strings. This is the most primitive form of debugging, but at least I'd know if a particular bit of code gets executed!

Example:

AIM_LOG( 'In rule Blah: ' + MyVariableOfInterest )

This is needed ASAP

thanks,

Terry

tkilshaw

And while you are at it, could we also please have:

1) a way to add comments in the textual form of a rule

2) if you make that multiline, then we would also be able to comment out parts of the rule in Textual Form.

or a way to mark a rule condition and a rule action as inactive in Standard Form

3) a way of marked a whole rule as inactive.

During development its often very useful to have alternate implementations of code. In Aware we are currently forced to physically remove anything that is not currently active.

thanks,

Terry

aware_support2

Terry,

We do plan to add a full interactive debugger in the future. In the meantime, Aware IM offers a logger that, on its most detailed level, gives a full report of the rule processing including evaluation of conditions, execution of actions, assigned values etc. The Log Viewer presents the report in a tree structure, which allows isolating a particular execution branch and searching for specific keywords.

There are two ways to invoke the Log Viewer. One is in real-time where the results of execution are immediately displayed in the Viewer. The other is to save the log in a file and later start a standalone Viewer to inspect the contents of the file. The latter can be especially useful when investigating problems reported by customers.

The logging options can be accessed by clicking the Logging button on the Aware IM Control Panel.

The improvements to the rule interface you have mentioned are also on our TODO list.

tkilshaw

Sounds good.

A brief explanation of which log files log what, and how to use them analysing a problem would be much appreciated.

Please try to see this from the viewpoint of a configurator who has no knowledge of the internals of Aware. A lot of the time I'm groping in the dark trying to figure out what is going on.

In the meanwhile I still need a way to write output somewhere from executing rules and processes. Otherwise I don't have even the crudest tools for debugging.

Clearly you aleady have a way to write to your log files, so adding what I'm asking for should be very easy, and I can't see any good reason to disallow it.

thanks,

Terry

aware_support2

Terry,

We have added the ability to print into log from rules to our TODO list. We will update this topic when the functionality is available.

The logging functionality is described in detail in section Execution Log of the Aware IM User Guide (under Using Aware IM - Data Processing). On its most detailed level the log should give a pretty good picture of what goes on in the system. It is an essential tool to learn how the system handles data processing.

Have you used the Log Viewer when testing your application? Is there anything that you would like to see that the Log Viewer currently does not show?

tkilshaw

I'll take a look at the manual section you mentioned.

So far I have not made much use of the logging.

I'll try it out and let you know.

Thanks,

Terry

yuri.rj

This INTERACTIVE debugger still in your to-do list?

Did you give up on this?

I don't know if i still don't understand how AwareIM works but the logViewer sometimes is really difficult(at least for me) to find a simple bug....

It would be REALLY good to have a step-by-step debugger

Cheers