Debugging Overview

Your COBOL development system provides a debugging environment where the source code of each program is displayed in a separate window. When you debug the code you can step through it so that each line of the source is highlighted in turn as each statement is executed, showing the effect of each statement. You can interrupt execution to examine and change data items, in a number of ways.

To enable remote debugging you need to have:

• an X Window implementation installed and running on your local machine. Micro Focus ViewNow X is provided as part of the Remote Development Option installation.
• set the environment variable CCITCP2 on the remote server to the appropriate machine. To set:

  CCITCP2=machine name

  export CCITCP2

  Where machine name is the name or IP address of the server or the machine running your mfds process.

The first time you debug a program, you need to build it for debugging. You do this by using a debug configuration, which defines the program to debug and configures the debugging environment. When you build for debugging, this creates the executable files (such as intermediate code (.int) files) and dictionary (.idy) files.

When you start debugging, the Debug perspective is displayed, with the views useful for debugging. The default views include:

• Debug View (top left by default) - gives a dynamic view of all the threads. For each thread, this view shows the call/perform stack, showing where the current statement was called from or performed from, and where previous calls and performs came from. You can move the execution point, by right-clicking a thread and choosing an option from the menu.
• Variables View - shows the variables that will be changed by the current statement, showing the before and after values of them. It also shows and highlights the variables that changed in the last statement executed. You can configure this view in Preferences, to display values as hexadecimal, for example.
• Breakpoints View - shows the breakpoints and the watchpoints you have set. You can set actions to take when a breakpoint is hit, by setting the actions in the breakpoint's properties. You can add watchpoints so that execution suspends when the data item changes. You can set a breakpoint or watchpoint by double clicking in the margin of the code view.
• Expressions View - shows the values of data items not directly accessed by the current execution statement while debugging. You can add data items by right-clicking in the Expressions view and selecting Add Watch Expression.

In addition, if configured, an X Window is displayed showing program dialog.