Views in the Debug Perspective

When you start debugging, the Debug perspective is displayed, with the views useful for debugging. The default views are listed below; you can display them by clicking Window > Show View.

Debug view

This view gives a dynamic view of all the threads. For each thread, this view shows the call/perform stack, showing where the current statement was called from or performed from, and where previous calls and performs came from. You can move the execution point, by right-clicking a thread and choosing an option from the menu.

Variables view

Shows the values of variables and file statuses of internal file names in use on the current or previous line of code. Those which have just changed in the last statement executed are highlighted.

You can configure the contents of this view in Preferences > Micro Focus > COBOL > Debug, to display values as hexadecimal, for example.

For procedural COBOL: Shows the data items in the previous and current statements, together with the data items' values.

For OO COBOL: Shows all the local data items and parameters and the SELF item (containing all fields).

You can change values of the variables in this view. Select a variable from the list, right-click and select Change Value. A dialog box is displayed.

Breakpoints View

Shows the breakpoints and the watchpoints you have set, and enables you to set a breakpoint for any program the application calls. You can set actions to take when a breakpoint is hit, by setting the actions in the breakpoint's properties. You can add watchpoints so that execution suspends when the data item changes.

You can set a breakpoint or watchpoint by double clicking in the margin of the code view.

You can create a breakpoint for any program in the workspace that your application uses by clicking Run > Add Program Breakpoint, or clicking the icon in the Breakpoints view, and entering the name of the file.

Expressions view

Shows the values of data items that you choose to monitor, whether or not they are directly accessed by the current execution statement while debugging.

During a debug session, you can add a data item to this view by selecting it in the code view, right-clicking and choosing Inspect COBOL and then choosing Add to Expressions.

You can also add an arbitrary expression in the view by clicking Add new expression or in the Expressions view. The added expression can be any string, but to be evaluated it needs to be a valid expression.

Restriction: Currently we support evaluation of data items only, and not complex expressions.

Memory view

You can use the Memory view, monitor or change for a data item or for a specified address. You can display the contents of the memory in Hex, ASCII or EBCDIC format rendering.

You can also debug in COBOL Copy View, which expands copybooks in line, so you can use it to perform debugging of your code and copybooks in a single view.