1 Note: the debugging interface is under development. Please do not make
2 changes to it yet as I will do major changes in the next few weeks.
3 To make my life easier, PLEASE follow the guidelines described in
4 this document. If you have some ideas that you would like to
5 incorporate, please contact me first.
6 Please read the document before writing new code.
7 Also, DO NOT USE fprintf (or printf) to output things. All these
8 will have to be translated to dprintf_ calls and there are already
9 about 3000 of them! Also, instead of writing FIXMEs in the source,
10 output a dprintf_fixme message. But read on...
11 25 Feb 1998, Dimitrie O. Paun <dimi@cs.toronto.edu>
17 The debugging messages are divided into 4 classes:
19 fixme -- Messages in this class relate to behavior of Wine that does
20 not correspond to standard Windows behavior and that should
22 Examples: stubs, semi-implemented features, etc.
24 err -- Messages in this class relate to serious errors in Wine.
25 This sort of messages are close to asserts -- that is,
26 you should output a 'err' message when the code detects a
27 condition which should not happen.
28 Examples: unexpected change in internal state, etc.
30 warn -- This are warning messages. You should report a warning when
31 something unwanted happen but the function behaves properly.
32 That is, output a warning when you encounter something
33 unexpected (ex: could not open a file) but the function deals
34 correctly with the situation (that is, according to the docs).
35 If you do not deal correctly with it, output a fixme.
36 Examples: fail to access a resource required by the app, etc.
38 info -- This are detailed debugging messages that are mainly useful
39 to debug a component. This are usually turned off.
40 Examples: everything else that does not fall in one of the
41 above mentioned categories and the user does not
42 need to know about it. This sort of messages simply
43 outputs something about the state of some component
44 that is of interest mainly to the developer of that
47 We will refer to a generic class as yyy.
49 The user has the capability to turn on or off messages in a particular
50 class. You can expect the following patters of usage (but note that
51 any combination is possible):
52 -- when you debug a component, all classes (info,warn,err,fixme)
54 -- during the pre-alpha (maybe alpha) stage of Wine, most likely
55 the info class will be disabled by default, but all others
56 (warn,err,fixme) will be enabled by default.
57 -- when Wine will become stable, most likely the info and warn
58 classes will be disabled by default, but all err and fixme
59 will be enabled by default.
60 -- in some installations that want the smallest footprint
61 and where the debug information is of no interest,
62 all classes may be disabled by default.
64 Of course, the user will have the runtime ability to override these
65 defaults. However, this ability may be turned off and certain classes
66 of messages may be completely disabled at compile time to reduce the
72 Also, we divide the debugging messages per component. Each component
73 is assigned a debugging channel (or type). The identifier of the
74 channel must be a valid C identifier but note that it may also be a
75 reserve word like int or static.
77 Examples of debugging channels/types:
80 We will refer to a generic channel as xxx.
82 Note: for those who know the old interface, the channel/type is
83 what followed the _ in the dprintf_xxx statements.
84 For example, to output a message on the debugging channel
85 reg in the old interface you would have to write:
87 dprintf_reg(stddeb, "Could not access key!\n");
89 In the new interface, we drop the stddeb as it is implicit.
90 However, we add an orthogonal piece of information to the
91 message: its class. This is very important as it will allow
92 us to selectively turn on or off certain messages based on
93 type of information they report. For this reason it is VERY
94 important to choose the right class for the message.
95 Anyhow, suppose we figured that this message should belong
96 in the warn class, so in the new interface, you write:
98 dprintf_warn(reg, "Could not access key!\n");
105 So, to output a message (class yyy) on channel xxx, do:
111 dprintf_yyy(xxx, "<message>", ...);
114 Some examples from the code:
121 "CRTDLL_setbuf(file %p buf %p)\n",
124 dprintf_warn(aspi, "Error opening device errno=%d\n", save_error);
127 If you need to declare a new debugging channel, do:
129 in the root directory of Wine.
131 Note that this will result in almost complete recompilation of Wine.
134 1. Please pay attention to which class you assign the message.
135 It is very, Very, VERY important to get the class right.
136 There are only 4 classes, so it is not hard. The reason
137 it is important to get it right is that too much information
138 is no information. For example, if you put things into the
139 warn class that should really be in the info class, the
140 output will be too big and this will force the user to
141 turn of warnings. But this way he will fail to see the important
142 ones. Also, if you put warnings into the info class lets say,
143 he will most likely miss those because usually the info class
144 is turned off. A similar argument can be made if you mix any
146 2. ALL LINES MUST END WITH A NEWLINE!!! If you can NOT output
147 everything that you want in the line with only one dprintf_xxx
148 statement, then you need to build the string in memory.
149 Please read the section below "In-memory messages" on the
150 preferred way to do it. PLEASE USE THAT INTERFACE TO BUILD
151 MESSAGES IN MEMORY. The reason is that we are not sure that
152 we like it and having everything in one format will facilitate
153 the (automatic) translation to a better interface.
160 To test whether the debugging output of class yyy on channel xxx is
167 if(debugging_info(atom)){
176 If you NEED to build the message from multiple calls, you need to
177 build it in memory. To do that, you should use the following
180 - declare a string (where you are allowed to declare C variables)
182 dbg_decl_str(name, len);
183 where name is the name of the string (you should use the channel
184 name on which you are going to output it)
187 dsprintf(name, "<message>", ...);
188 which is just like a sprintf function but instead of a C string as
189 first parameter it takes the name you used to declare it.
191 - obtain a pointer to the string with:
194 - reset the string (if you want to reuse it with):
197 Example (modified from the code):
202 LPINT16 p = (LPINT16)tabs;
203 dbg_decl_str(listbox, 256); /* declare the string */
205 for (i = 0; i < descr->nb_tabs; i++) {
206 descr->tabs[i] = *p++<<1;
207 if(debugging_info(listbox)) /* write in it only if
208 dsprintf(listbox, "%hd ", descr->tabs[i]); /* we are gonna output it */
210 dprintf_info(listbox, "Listbox %04x: settabstops %s\n",
211 wnd->hwndSelf, dbg_str(listbox)); /* output the whole thing */
214 If you need to use it two times in the same scope do like this:
219 LPINT16 p = (LPINT16)tabs;
220 dbg_decl_str(listbox, 256); /* declare the string */
222 for (i = 0; i < descr->nb_tabs; i++) {
223 descr->tabs[i] = *p++<<1;
224 if(debugging_info(listbox)) /* write in it only if
225 dsprintf(listbox, "%hd ", descr->tabs[i]); /* we are gonna output it */
227 dprintf_info(listbox, "Listbox %04x: settabstops %s\n",
228 wnd->hwndSelf, dbg_str(listbox)); /* output the whole thing */
230 dbg_reset_str(listbox); /* !!!reset the string!!! */
231 for (i = 0; i < descr->extrainfo_nr; i++) {
232 descr->extrainfo = *p+1;
233 if(debugging_info(listbox)) /* write in it only if
234 dsprintf(listbox,"%3d ",descr->extrainfo); /* we are gonna output it */
237 dprintf_info(listbox, "Listbox %04x: extrainfo %s\n",
238 wnd->hwndSelf, dbg_str(listbox)); /* output the whole thing */
243 As I already stated, I do not think this will be the ultimate interface
244 for building in-memory debugging messages. In fact, I do have better ideas
245 which I hope to have time to implement for the next release. For this
246 reason, please try not to use it. However, if you need to output a line
247 in more than one dprintf_xxx calls, then USE THIS INTERFACE. DO NOT use
248 other methods. This way, I will easily translate everything to the new
249 interface (when it will become available). So, if you need to use if,
250 then follow the following guidelines:
251 -- wrap calls to dsprintf with a
252 if(debugging_yyy(xxx))
254 Of course, if the call to dsprintf is made from within a function
255 which you know is called only if debugging_yyy(xxx) is true
256 (say you call it only like this:
257 if(debugging_yyy(xxx))
258 print_some_debug_info();
260 then you need not (and should not) wrap calls to dsprintf with
261 the before mentioned if.
262 -- name the string EXACTLY like the debugging channel on which
263 is going to be output. Please see the above example.
269 Resource identifiers can be either strings or numbers. To make life a bit
270 easier for outputting this beasts (and to help you avoid the need to build
271 the message in memory), I introduced a new function called:
275 The function is defined in debugstr.h
276 and has the following prototype:
278 LPSTR debugres(const void *id);
280 It takes a pointer to the resource id and returns a nicely formatted
281 string of the identifier.
283 It the high word of the pointer is 0, then it assumes that the
284 identifier is a number and thus returns a string of the form:
288 where xxxx are 4 hex-digits representing the low word of id.
290 It the high word of the pointer is not 0, then it assumes that the
291 identifier is a string and thus returns a string of the form:
295 Thus, to use it, do something on the following lines:
297 #include "debugstr.h"
301 dprintf_yyy(xxx, "resource is %s", debugres(myresource));
304 The -debugmsg command line option
305 ---------------------------------
307 So, the -debugmsg command line option has been changed as follows:
308 - the new syntax is: -debugmsg [yyy]#xxx[,[yyy1]#xxx1]*
309 where # is either + or -
311 - when the optional class argument (yyy) is not present,
312 then the statement will enable(+)/disable(-) all messages for
313 the given channel (xxx) on all classes. For example:
317 enables all messages on the reg channel and disables all
318 messages on the file channel.
319 This is very close (actually identical) to the old semantics.
321 - when the optional class argument (yyy) is present,
322 then the statement will enable(+)/disable(-) messages for
323 the given channel (xxx) only on the given class. For example:
325 -debugmsg info+reg,warn-file
327 enables info messages on the reg channel and disables warning
328 messages on the file channel.
330 - also, the pseudo-channel all is also supported and it has the
333 -debugmsg +all -- enables all debug messages
334 -debugmsg -all -- disables all debug messages
335 -debugmsg yyy+all -- enables debug messages for class yyy on all
337 -debugmsg yyy-all -- disables debug messages for class yyy on all
342 -debugmsg warn-all -- disables all warning messages.
345 Also, note that at the moment:
346 - the fixme, err, warn classes are all enabled by default
347 - the info class is disabled by default
348 - there is no way to compile out the messages. All are
349 runtime configurable. This will come next release.