hlison@bbn.com (Herb Lison) (01/07/89)
I've got an application on a PC using the PC-NFS socket libraries provided by SUN. The application also talks to some custom hardware via a TSR driver installed through config.sys. My problem is debugging the damn thing. The application crashes the PC in a somewhat unpredictable fashion. I've tried using CodeView, but there doesn't appear anyway to find out where the program is crashing. The manual says that you can interrupt a running program with Ctrl-C, Break or SysReq. None of these have any effect. Anybody have any ideas? Thanks in advance. Herb Lison
john@stiatl.UUCP (John DeArmond) (01/07/89)
In article <12479@emerald.BBN.COM> hlison@bbn.com (Herb Lison) writes: >I've got an application on a PC using the PC-NFS socket libraries provided >by SUN. The application also talks to some custom hardware via a TSR >driver installed through config.sys. My problem is debugging the damn >thing. The application crashes the PC in a somewhat unpredictable >fashion. I've tried using CodeView, but there doesn't appear anyway >to find out where the program is crashing. The manual says that you >can interrupt a running program with Ctrl-C, Break or SysReq. None >of these have any effect. > >Anybody have any ideas? Thanks in advance. > >Herb Lison An Atron Probe hardware debugger would make this debugging kinda trivial. If you have a 386, a software substitute is the Soft-ICE/Magic-CV product from Nu-Mega. This uses the protected mode and debug registers of the 386 to run codeview in another partition separate from your application and gives you hardware breakpoints. In any event, I would start out by looking at my detailed link map (/MAP for the linker) and determine where the code resides. I'd then set breakpoints around the code space so the debugger would break if the IP leaves the code space. That will catch errant function pointers or other things that cause the code to take the merry walk thru memory. The program should either go errant which will trigger a breakpoint or it will hang in a loop, in which case, the hardware/software debugger can break out. All three products (atron, soft-ice, & CV) have a stack trace-back function (CV's is the most limited, Atron's the best). You should be able to see where you are from a register dump and where you came from from the trace-back dump. Then you simply figure out what's wrong. simple, no? I've been using the Nu-Mega products for several months and am extremely happy (compaq 386). I've yet to have to get the Atron out since i got the 2. See any of the popular software journals for advertisments. john -- John De Armond, WD4OQC | "I can't drive 85!" Sales Technologies, Inc. Atlanta, GA | Sammy Hagar driving ...!gatech!stiatl!john | thru Atlanta!