1  Debugger Release Notes

1 Debugger Release Notes

This document describes the changes made to the Debugger application.

  • The configuration files .erlang, .erlang.cookie and .erlang.crypt can now be located in the XDG Config Home directory.

    See the documentation for each file and filename:basedir/2 for more details.

    Own Id: OTP-17554 Aux Id: GH-5016 PR-5408 OTP-17821

  • Improve record handling, print known records with record syntax.

    Own Id: OTP-17574

  • Extended error information for failing BIF calls as proposed in EEP 54 has been implemented.

    When a BIF call from the Erlang shell fails, more information about which argument or arguments that were in error will be printed. The same extended error information will by proc_lib, common_test, and qlc when BIF calls fail.

    For applications that wish to provide the same extended error information, there are new functions erl_error:format_exception/3 and erl_error:format_exception/4.

    There is a new error/3 BIF that allows applications or libraries to provide extended error information in the same way for their own exceptions.

    Own Id: OTP-16686

  • EEP-52 has been implemented.

    In binary matching, the size of the segment to be matched is now allowed to be a guard expression, and similarly in map matching the keys can now be guard expressions. See the Erlang Reference Manual and Programming Examples for more details.

    Language compilers or code generators that generate Core Erlang code may need to be updated to be compatible with the compiler in OTP 23. For more details, see the section Backwards Compatibility in EEP 52.

    Own Id: OTP-14708

  • The deprecated erlang:get_stacktrace/0 BIF now returns an empty list instead of a stacktrace. To retrieve the stacktrace, use the extended try/catch syntax that was introduced in OTP 21. erlang:get_stacktrace/0 is scheduled for removal in OTP 24.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-16484

  • Fix a bug where Unicode atoms are printed differently depending on if integer lists are printed as strings or not.

    Own Id: OTP-16186

  • All incorrect (that is, all) uses of "can not" has been corrected to "cannot" in source code comments, documentation, examples, and so on.

    Own Id: OTP-14282 Aux Id: PR-1891

  • Improved documentation.

    Own Id: OTP-15190

  • Fix a bug where calling a fun inside a binary would crash the Debugger.

    Own Id: OTP-14957 Aux Id: PR-1741

  • Do not quote variables and button names in Debugger windows. The bug was introduced in Erlang/OTP 20.1.

    Own Id: OTP-14802

  • Tools are updated to show Unicode atoms correctly.

    Own Id: OTP-14464

  • The Erlang shell, qlc:string_to_handle(), and the Debugger (the Evaluator area and Edit variable window of the Bindings area) can parse pids, ports, references, and external funs, as long as they can be created in the running system.

    Own Id: OTP-14296

  • Fix editing of simple binary values in the Bindings area of the Debugger's Attach Process Window.

    Own Id: OTP-14318

  • Miscellaneous updates due to atoms containing arbitrary Unicode characters.

    Own Id: OTP-14285

  • Update build scripts to not make assumptions about where env, cp and perl are located.

    Own Id: OTP-13800

  • A bug causing non-interpreted code to crash the debugger has been fixed.

    Own Id: OTP-13756

  • When the debugger searches for source files, it will also use the location of the source in the compilation information part of the BEAM file.

    Own Id: OTP-13375

  • Documentation corrections.

    Own Id: OTP-12994

  • Fix crash when starting a quick debugging session. Thanks Alan Duffield.

    Own Id: OTP-12911 Aux Id: seq12906

  • Support variables as Map keys in expressions and patterns

    Erlang will accept any expression as keys in Map expressions and it will accept literals or bound variables as keys in Map patterns.

    Own Id: OTP-12218

  • Fix save state which did not work on Mac.

    Own Id: OTP-12378

  • Make sure to install .hrl files when needed

    Own Id: OTP-12197

  • Invoking debugger functions ia/1 and iaa/1 crashed, when it tried to invoke the old and removed gs based gui functions.

    Own Id: OTP-12357

  • Fix evaluation of map updates in the debugger and erl_eval

    Reported-by: José Valim

    Own Id: OTP-11922

  • The debugger now correctly evaluates code such as 'X = true andalso X'. (Thanks to Anthony Ramine.)

    Own Id: OTP-11553

  • A few subtle bugs in the evaluation of code in the debugger has been corrected. (Thanks to Anthony Ramine.)

    Own Id: OTP-11676

  • Application upgrade (appup) files are corrected for the following applications:

    asn1, common_test, compiler, crypto, debugger, dialyzer, edoc, eldap, erl_docgen, et, eunit, gs, hipe, inets, observer, odbc, os_mon, otp_mibs, parsetools, percept, public_key, reltool, runtime_tools, ssh, syntax_tools, test_server, tools, typer, webtool, wx, xmerl

    A new test utility for testing appup files is added to test_server. This is now used by most applications in OTP.

    (Thanks to Tobias Schlager)

    Own Id: OTP-11744

  • Removed gs based applications and gs based backends. The observer application replaces the removed applications.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-10915

  • Support Maps syntax in debugger (Thanks to Anthony Ramine).

    Own Id: OTP-11673

  • Fix matching of floating point middle-endian machines. Thanks to Johannes Weissl.

    Own Id: OTP-11201

  • A new checkbox has been added. When it is checked, the range set by the erl flag +pc is used for determining when to print lists of integers as strings. When it is unchecked, integer lists are never printed as strings.

    A minor incompatibility: settings saved by Erlang R16B01 or later cannot be read by Erlang R16B or earlier.

    Own Id: OTP-10899

  • Erlang source files with non-ASCII characters are now encoded in UTF-8 (instead of latin1).

    Own Id: OTP-11041 Aux Id: OTP-10907

  • The +pc flag to erl can be used to set the range of characters considered printable. This affects how the shell and io:format("~tp",...) functionality does heuristic string detection. More can be read in STDLIB users guide.

    Own Id: OTP-10884

  • Fix Debugger settings dialog due to changed behavior in wxFileDialog (Thanks to Håkan Mattsson)

    Own Id: OTP-10621

  • Support for Unicode has been implemented.

    Own Id: OTP-10302

  • Where necessary a comment stating encoding has been added to Erlang files. The comment is meant to be removed in Erlang/OTP R17B when UTF-8 becomes the default encoding.

    Own Id: OTP-10630

  • Integer lists and utf-8 binaries in variables are now displayed as strings.

    Own Id: OTP-10679

  • Fixed disappearing breakpoints bug, reported by Ricardo Catalinas Jiménez.

    Own Id: OTP-9950

  • Fix "OK" spelling in debugger messages and variables

    Simple code refactor in the debugger: renames all the occurrences of "Ok" to "OK" in the code, variable names and strings. This improves the consistency of the code and follows the GTK UI where "OK" is always used.(Thanks to Ricardo Catalinas Jiménez)

    Own Id: OTP-9699

  • Variables are now now allowed in 'fun M:F/A' as suggested by Richard O'Keefe in EEP-23.

    The representation of 'fun M:F/A' in the abstract format has been changed in an incompatible way. Tools that directly read or manipulate the abstract format (such as parse transforms) may need to be updated. The compiler can handle both the new and the old format (i.e. extracting the abstract format from a pre-R15 BEAM file and compiling it using compile:forms/1,2 will work). The syntax_tools application can also handle both formats.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-9643

  • Fix issues reported by dialyzer.

    Own Id: OTP-9107

  • Miscellaneous updates

    Own Id: OTP-8976

  • Type specs have been added/cleaned up. (Thanks to Kostis Sagonas.)

    Own Id: OTP-8757

  • Warnings due to new autoimported BIFs removed

    Own Id: OTP-8674 Aux Id: OTP-8579

  • The predefined builtin type tid() has been removed. Instead, ets:tid() should be used.

    *** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY ***

    Own Id: OTP-8687

  • Bugs have been fixed in the evaluation of comprehensions and short-circuit expressions in guards.

    Own Id: OTP-8310

  • Miscellaneous corrections of the WX version of the debugger.

    Own Id: OTP-8346

  • The documentation is now built with open source tools (xsltproc and fop) that exists on most platforms. One visible change is that the frames are removed.

    Own Id: OTP-8201

  • Added a new gui, start with debugger:start(gs) for old gui.

    Own Id: OTP-7366

  • The undocumented, unsupported, and deprecated guard BIF is_constant/1 has been removed.

    *** INCOMPATIBILITY with R12B ***

    Own Id: OTP-7673

  • There is now experimental support for loading of code from archive files. See the documentation of code, init, erl_prim_loader and escript for more info.

    The error handling of escripts has been improved.

    An escript may now set explicit arguments to the emulator, such as -smp enabled.

    An escript may now contain a precompiled beam file.

    An escript may now contain an archive file containing one or more applications (experimental).

    The internal module code_aux has been removed.

    Own Id: OTP-7548 Aux Id: otp-6622

  • Minor changes.

    Own Id: OTP-7388

  • The documentation has been updated so as to reflect the last updates of the Erlang shell as well as the minor modifications of the control sequence p of the io_lib module.

    Superfluous empty lines have been removed from code examples and from Erlang shell examples.

    Own Id: OTP-6944 Aux Id: OTP-6554, OTP-6911

  • Minor Makefile changes.

    Own Id: OTP-6689

  • Obsolete guard tests (such as list()) have been replaced with the modern guard tests (such as is_list()).

    Own Id: OTP-6725

  • Removed some dead code from dbg_ieval.

    Own Id: OTP-6552

  • The interpreter could not handle the case where an expression that should evaluate to a fun referred to uninterpreted code.

    Own Id: OTP-6061 Aux Id: seq10295

  • Timeout for gen_server calls within Debugger is now set to infinity.

    Own Id: OTP-6103

  • Notification windows are now centered over a parent window.

    Own Id: OTP-6011 Aux Id: OTP-5987

  • When interpreting a module, it is now checked that the module does not belong to the Kernel, STDLIB, GS or Debugger application, as interpreting a module used by the debugger/interpreter itself will lead to a deadlock or emulator crash.

    Also int:interpretable(Mod) has been extended to return {error,{app,App}} if Mod belongs to one of the above applications.

    Own Id: OTP-6020

  • andalso/orelse is now supported.

    Own Id: OTP-6021 Aux Id: OTP-5894

  • When evaluating a guard expression for a fun function clause, the environment variable bindings were not taken into account.

    Own Id: OTP-5837

  • A number of smaller improvements to the GUI:

    • Multiple choices now possible in Function Break Dialog Window.
    • Right-clicking the Module entry in a Break Dialog Window will open a popup menu from which the appropriate (interpreted) module can be selected.
    • Auto Attach options can now be changed using the buttons in the left part of the Monitor Window, not only by the corresponding menu buttons.
    • Buttons for enabling and disabling all breakpoints have been added.
    • View Module Window keyboard shortcuts corrected.
    Own Id: OTP-4284

  • Debugger can now handle try-catch. This meant large parts of the interpreter had to be rewritten. Also, some small changes to the GUI have been made.

    Own Id: OTP-5730

  • It is now possible to encrypt the debug information in Beam files, to help keep the source code secret. See the documentation for compile on how to provide the key for encrypting, and the documentation for beam_lib on how to provide the key for decryption so that tools such as the Debugger, Xref, or Cover can be used.

    The beam_lib:chunks/2 functions now accepts an additional chunk type 'compile_info' to retrieve the compilation information directly as a term. (Thanks to Tobias Lindahl.)

    Own Id: OTP-5460 Aux Id: seq9787

  • The graphic applications now search for HTML documentation in the correct place.

    Own Id: OTP-5381

  • Package support has been added to the debugger. Thanks to Richard Carlsson in the HiPE project.

    Own Id: OTP-5255

  • Updated to handle the latest version of the compiler.

    Own Id: OTP-5265

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