7.1. Debugdefs.h

This include defines ERRORMSG, WARNINGMSG, INFOMSG and DEBUGMSG. if _DEBUG_ is defined these functions work like printf, otherwise they do nothing. This is a very easy possibility to switch all debug messages off.

ERRORMSG(...) prints on stderr independent of activated debug domains and current global debug level.

WARNINGMSG(...) prints on stdout independent of activated debug domains and if global debug level is smaller or equal to DL_WARNING.

INFOMSG(...) prints on stdout with debug level DL_INFO independent of activated debug domains.

DEBUGMSG(domain,level,...) prints on stdout if specified debug domain is activated and global debug level is smaller or equal to the specified one.

The global debug level is a global variable that is defined in debugdefs.c, which is part of libMCAmisc.

As levels the predefined symbols are recommendet:

#define DL_DEFAULT    0
#define DL_VERBOSE          DL_DEFAULT-3  // output of everything
#define DL_DEBUG            DL_DEFAULT-2  // all debug messages
#define DL_CREATE           DL_DEFAULT-1  // debug message of constructors and destructors
#define DL_INFO             DL_DEFAULT    // info messages
#define DL_WARNING          DL_DEFAULT+1  // warning messages

Debug domains define groups of debug messages. The user is able to activate these groups individually using the the command line option --ddomain. This options requires a comma separated list of domain names. There are predefined MCA2 domains: at (AttributeTree), bb (Blackboard), tcp (TCP-Communication), system (MCA2 core), loop (MCA2 loop), all (activate all domains).

In Programs the following defined symbols are used:

enum debug_domain_bits{
  DD_DEFAULT_BIT,
  DD_SYSTEM_BIT,
  DD_LOOP_BIT,
  DD_TCP_BIT,
  DD_BB_BIT,
  DD_AT_BIT,
};

#define DD_DEFAULT (1 << DD_DEFAULT_BIT)
#define DD_SYSTEM  (1 << DD_SYSTEM_BIT)
#define DD_LOOP    (1 << DD_LOOP_BIT)
#define DD_TCP     (1 << DD_TCP_BIT)
#define DD_BB      (1 << DD_BB_BIT)
#define DD_AT      (1 << DD_AT_BIT)

 DEBUGMSG(DD_SYSTEM,DL_INFO,"PartBase: Set debug domain %s\n",debug_param);

The global debug level can be set using the command line option --dlevel. Default value is 0.

If a user wants to define a new debug domain, he has to use other bits than the above (1 to 6). A 32 bit value is available, so the bits 7 to 32 can be used. New debug domains are only usefull for classes that are no modules. For the latter M_DEBUG output possibility has to be prefered. See next section for details on it.

In order to be able to activated user-defined debug domains, they must be registered to the MCA system. This is done within initPartDescription in your main program using the function AddDebugDomain. It takes a description and a bit number.

#define DD_MY_OWN_BIT 11
#define DD_MY_OWN     (1 << DD_MY_OWN_BIT)

AddDebugDomain("own",DD_MY_OWN);

DEBUGMSG(DD_MY_OWN,DL_DEBUG,"example debug message\n");