Debugger : Debugger Commands : TRACE Command

TRACE Command

The Debugger can provide a trace of the prototype execution. If the trace mode is on, the Debugger issues a message whenever a change occurs in the system. You can restrict the Debugger and have it report only certain types of changes. The trace is a history of how the system performed in its actual execution.

The TRACE facility reports whenever a traced object changes value or status. Specifically, it reports:

You can optionally have each trace message contain a time stamp specifying when the reported change occurred.

Since the definition of the system’s behavior is based on the notion of step, it might be useful in the course of debugging to see step bounds. For this, you use an additional trace option - step trace. In this case, messages are issued upon starting and ending each step.

By storing a trace in a file, you can perform a post-run analysis and check whether the actual behavior matches the expected one. Since the trace refers to specification objects, it is easy to interpret the results of the code run in terms of the original Rational Statemate specification.