TotalView Users Guide - CI Wiki

Displaying Variables
since the variable no longer exists. The Status area can contain other information
that alerts you to issues and problems with a variable.
When you debug recursive code, TotalView doesn’t automatically refocus a
Variable Window onto different instances of a recursive function. If you
have a breakpoint in a recursive function, you need to explicitly open a new
Variable Window to see the local variable’s value in that stack frame.
CLI: dwhere, dup, and dprint
Use dwhere to locate the stack frame, use dup to move to it, and
then use dprint to display the value.
Select the View > Compilation Scope > Floating command to tell TotalView
that it can refocus a Variable Window on different instances. For more information,
see “Viewing Variables in Different Scopes as Program Executes” on
page 288.
Controlling the Information Being Displayed
TotalView can display more information about your variable than its value.
This information is sometimes called meta-information. You can control how
much of this meta-information it displays by clicking on the More and Less
buttons. (See Figure 171 on page 286.)
As the button names indicate, clicking More displays more meta-information
and clicking Less displays less of it.
The two most useful fields are Type, which shows you what your variable’s
actual type is, and Expression, which allows you to control what is being
displayed. This is sometimes needed because TotalView tries to show the
type in the way that it thinks you declared it in your program.
The online help describes all the meta-information fields.
Seeing Value Changes
TotalView can tell you when a variable’s value changes in several ways.
� When your program stops at a breakpoint, TotalView adds a yellow highlight
to the variable’s value if it has changed. This is shown in Figure 172
on page 286.
If the thread is stopped for another reason—for example, you’ve stepped
the thread—and the value has changed, TotalView does not add yellow
highlighting to the line.
� You can tell TotalView to display the Last Value column. Do this by selecting
Last Value in the column menu, which is displayed after you click on
the column menu ( ) icon. (See Figure 173 on page 287.)
Notice that TotalView has highlighted all items that have changed within
an array. In a similar fashion it can show the individual items that have
changed within a structure.
In general, TotalView only retains the value for data items displayed within
the Variable Window. At times, TotalView may track adjacent values within
TotalView Users Guide: version 8.7 285