Teach Yourself Borland C++ in 14 Days - portal

406 Day 11
you want to view the details of the class. For viewing all the data
members of a class, you should use the Debug Inspector, which I’ll
discuss in a minute.
Using the Watch List
When a breakpoint is hit, the Watch List will display the current value of any variables that
have been added to the Watch List. If the Watch List is not currently open, you can choose
View | Watches from the main menu to display it.
Under certain circumstances, a message will be displayed next to the variable rather than the
variable’s value. If, for instance, a variable is out of scope or not found, the Watch List displays
Undefined symbol ‘x’ next to the variable name. If the program is not running or if the
program is not stopped at a breakpoint, the Watch List will display [process not accessible]
for all watch items. A disabled watch item will have next to it. Other messages
may be displayed depending on the current state of the application or the current state of a
particular variable.
As I said yesterday, you may on occasion see Variable has been optimized and is not
available in the Watch List. This is one of the minor disadvantages to having an optimizing
compiler. If you need to inspect variables that are subject to optimization, either declare the
variable with the volatile keyword or turn off the Register Variables option on the Compiler
page of the Project Options dialog box. After debugging, remove the volatile modifier from
the variable.
TIP
The Watch List can be used as a quickie decimal/hexadecimal converter.
To convert a hex number to decimal, choose Run | Add Watch
from the main menu. Type the hexadecimal number in the Expression
field and click OK. Both the hexadecimal number and the decimal
equivalent will be displayed in the Watch List. To convert a decimal
number to hex, perform the same procedure, except click the Hexadecimal
radio button to change the display type to hexadecimal. Because
the Expression field will accept a mathematical expression, you can also
use the Watch List as a hex calculator. You can even mix hexadecimal
and decimal values in the same expression.