Debugging XPL pgms

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

Thanks so much, Robert, for explaining some of the debugging tools.
 I've been writing more XPL programs recently and debugging, the
old-fashioned way--by manually inserting  etc. That's very time-consuming.
My recent pgms all are devoted to making certain systematic changes in Xy
files or other text files.
I know you and Carl are always on the lookout for something to add to U2
... I'd love a way to run a pgm on a file
very slowly, with optional pauses dependent on my hitting a key while I
watch it execute. Then if I do pause it, it would bring up a new window
asking me for the S/G numbers I wnat to display.
The overall concept is that I could see the program work in just the way I
could look over the shoulder of an operator typing in each step and
executing it. The need for this--in my case at least--is not that there is
trouble with pgm logic or syntax, but that there's always some special case
in the *file* that throws off my assumptions ("Oh, my god, I forgot that
sometimes lines end with a space before the carriage-return, and that
throws off my Change Invisible command.")
(Hmmm: such a program should make all BX/Q2 pairs into BC/XC so that one
can see which commands are being executed. But that would raise the problem
of the different way BX and BC treat literals.)

Or is there ALREADY something in U2 that fits my ideal?

Eagerly anticipating your response, I remain your humble and obedient servant,
Harry


Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx