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ORInspect - Inspect global module variables and heap pointers

Description

Debugging capabilities of Project Oberon are limited. You can output things to System.Log or you can get raw memory dumps. This is far from what you can expect from other debuggers.

As a very minimal way of symbolic variable inspection, this modification adds an extra .isy (inspect symbol) file type (written by the compiler) and two commands:

ORInspect.Module will print all global variables of a module. ORInspect.HeapAddress prints all fields of the (actual) record pointing to a given address (determined from the type descriptor) Arrays are flattened, and pointers are printed as ORInspect.HeapAddress command, so you can dig deeper if desired.

Due to the flattened arrays, .isy files can grow quite large, so you will only want to generate them if you want to use them. Therefore, a new compiler switch /d was added to control whether debugging info (.isy files) should be generated.

On the other hand, flattened arrays and records have the advantage that every ORInspect command needs to load at most one .isy file. Which brings another disadvantage: In case a variable or record field (possibly extension) is from a type exported by another module, but the field itself is not exported, the field name is not included in the (normal) symbol file and therefore cannot be added to the inspect symbol file. If this bothers you, a secondary patch is available which will change the symbol file format to include such fields; in the same format as exported fields, but prefixing the name with -. Pointer types will get erased, as the pointed to type may not be exported, and they are not needed since ORInspect.HeapAddress will look up the actual type from the type descriptor anyway.

When following heap address references, it can happen that the objects get garbage collected before you have a chance to inspect them. To minimize this risk, ORInspect can keep references to the last up to 256 objects that it printed references to. To use this, call ORInspect.KeepHeapAlive and pass the number of objects you want to keep alive as a parameter.

Installation

  • Push ORInspect.Mod.txt and ORInspect.Tool.txt

  • Apply InspectSymbols.patch to ORP.Mod, and ORB.Mod.

  • Optionally apply MoreSymbole.patch to ORB.Mod.

  • In case you only applied the first patch, it is sufficient to recompile the compiler:

    ORP.Compile ORB.Mod/s ORInspect.Mod/s ~
ORP.Compile ORG.Mod/s ORP.Mod/s ~

  • In case you applied both patches, recompile the whole system, as the symbol file format changed:

    ORP.Compile Kernel.Mod/s FileDir.Mod/s Files.Mod/s Modules.Mod/s ~
ORL.Link Modules ~
ORL.Load Modules.bin ~

ORP.Compile Input.Mod/s Display.Mod/s Viewers.Mod/s ~
ORP.Compile Fonts.Mod/s Texts.Mod/s ~
ORP.Compile Oberon.Mod/s ~
ORP.Compile MenuViewers.Mod/s ~
ORP.Compile TextFrames.Mod/s ~
ORP.Compile System.Mod/s ~
ORP.Compile Edit.Mod/s ~
ORP.Compile ORS.Mod/s ORB.Mod/s ~
ORP.Compile ORG.Mod/s ORP.Mod/s ~
ORP.Compile ORInspect.Mod/s ~

  • Restart the system.

  • Recompile all modules that you want to inspect, with the /d switch.

  • Open ORInspect.Tool and start inspecting.