Question

Is there any tutorial for debugging applications/ running profiler in eclipse? Please let me know thanks..

Answer 1

This will depend on what language you are using. How you setup for debugging PHP vs C++ is a little different as they use different underlying tools (PHP – Xdebug vs C++ – gdb)

In a general sense, you will configure the app much like you would set it up to run within Eclipse. In some cases you will have to be sure to enable debugging information within the code base for the debuggers to provide detailed information. From there you’re looking at setting breakpoints, stepping, and setting up watches which is very similar language-to-language within the Debug Perspective in Eclipse.

A common scenario is to set a breakpoint within the codebase by clicking on the left bar in the editor, and selecting toggle breakpoint. Then click the debug button in the IDE and it should open the Debug Perspective and either break at the beginning of main, or will run to the breakpoint you set in the code. Once the break is hit, you will be able to browse the stack frames within one of the views within the perspective and you will see tabs for watches, breakpoints, etc. The buttons near the top that look similar to play, and then arrows jumping over dots are the way you control the execution from your breakpoint. If you click “step over” the code will go line by line in the source file you’re in until it must goto another file to follow the execution of your code. It will not go into a function call, rather call it execute it and return to the next line in the current source. If you want to go into the function call and continue debugging from there, you would use the “step into” button which is right next to “step over” in most cases. Resume restarts regular execution and will run your program normally until the end or another breakpoint is hit.

Start from there and get comfortable with it and then start playing with things like conditional breakpoints and watches. Conditional breaks are exactly like breakpoints but they only stop execution if the condition you specify is met. With C++ this is usually done by right clicking on the breakpoint and providing the conditional expression where appropriate in the menu. (I forget the exact verbage)

Watches allow you to watch memory and have the program break when memory is read, written to, or both so you can inspect your application.

Some debuggers in Eclipse may lack some of these features or offer more advanced features than those listed above, but these concepts should get you well on your way.

Good luck!