[chuck-users] Array out of bounds.... error usability

[Spencer Salazar]

Bytecode instruction number is typically related to position within  
the current function (where a function might be an actual function, or  
the top-level execution context for a given .ck file).  They're not  
necessarily linearly related to line numbers or position in current  
function.  In fact they are not even necessarily monotonically  
increasing in that respect, but in unoptimized bytecode (e.g., pretty  
much any bytecode ChucK generates) they probably are.

Anecdotally, I was chasing down some annoying ChucK bugs a few weeks  
ago, and I just couldn't figure out where it was crashing after  
several solid hours of debugging.  Desperate, I hacked in a quick/ 
dirty mapping of VM instruction -> .ck line number, and I figured out  
the bug in like 5 seconds.  I think if this functionality was applied  
to the main ChucK branch, it could pin these random ChucK exceptions  
to specific line numbers, and also put ChucK on the path towards  
having its own debugger.

spencer

On May 7, 2009, at 7:33 PM, Tom Lieber wrote:

> 2009/5/7 Kassen <signal.automatique at gmail.com>:
>> These "bytcode instructions" are those linked more or less linearly  
>> to the
>> file? What I mean is could one home in on the bug by intentionally  
>> having a
>> array go out of bounds, then checking whether this results in a  
>> higher or a
>> lower number?
>
> Yeah, that seems likely. But I'm completely unfamiliar with ChucK's
> compiler, and no time to play with it tonight, unfortunately.
>
>> Another solution would of course be to look more closely before  
>> copy-pasting
>> a entire loop and verifying whether all of the variables still make  
>> sense in
>> the new scope... *cough*
>
> :D
>
> -- 
> Tom Lieber
> http://AllTom.com/
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