Re: Breaking outside of the sources

[Keith Seitz <keiths@cygnus.com>]

On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Laurent Duperval wrote:

> Not really. Often, breaking in system libraries doesn't provide interesting
> feedback. If I interrupt the program, most of the time I'm not interested in
> knowing that I was in poll(), select() or other sytem calls. But I am
> interested in knowing in which part of my code the poll(), select()... was
> called. Most of the time it can be done using the stacktrace but for new
> users (especially) it adds an unwanted (unneeded?) level of complexity.

Oh, I see. Well, this is part of the ropes, though. Debuggers are not 
tools designed for novices. They are designed for the serious (if not 
professional) programmer/engineer.

> I think (I dunno, I haven't used them in a while) that's the way MS
> debuggers work.

Hmm. Been a few months since I used VisualStudio, but I would guess that 
all it does is change the debugger's stack frame. You're still in the system 
call.

The only way for the debugger to stop your program outside a system 
library would be for it to have a lot of intimate knowledge of the 
program and all of the system libraries. It would need to step you out of the 
system call, but it could not do this with, for example, any blocking 
system call.

Keith