Debugging

Submitted by: Karl Johan Kleist Last Updated: 2006-07-30

Tips about Debugging ACL

The online help about the predefined variable _STRICT_ (help 5649) mentions the otherwise undocumented "debug" option. However, there is more to be said about debugging.

The "Epic Diagnostics" window is started with "atitrace.exe" (a sibling to "epic.exe").

To enable ACL tracing:

set debug==extwin; set debug=3.27;

Note the double equal signs in the first statement! (Who knows what "3.27" means? Maybe this magic number has been chosen simply because the maximum page width and depth supported by Arbortext Editor is 3.27 meters?)

If you want the output to a file instead, do like this:

set debug==C:\tmp\acl-debug.out; set debug=3.27;

In order to write your own messages to the trace:

eval 'my message' output=*debug;