One thing I've learned from writing a debugging COBOL code on an IBM
mainframe, and to a lesser extent C on a PC, is the use of DISPLAY (or
printf) statements. Now, when your COBOL code crashes on the mainframe,
it generates one hellacious dump, replete with compilation and linkage
options, source code listings, a complete hexadecimal representation of
the entire memory map allocated to you program (including variables),
and any output that may have been generated. The largest dump *I've*
ever studied (yeah, you gotta study those puppies, can't just flip
through them), was in the neighborhood of 30,000 lines. I'm sure they
come in much larger sizes in commercial enterprises (we have a space
limit enforce by MVS, so if it's more than a set # of lines, it gets cut
off).
Now, imagine trying to find a solitary line printed from a DISPLAY
(analagous to printf) statement in that mess! It's a soul-searching
enterprise--even searching through the softcopy. It seems IBM's FDUMPs
include every word and possible letter/number combo in the world (in
English, of course). Ah, but wait! IBM, in it's infinite wisdom,
eschewed to use of profanity in their systems (as far as we know).
This means fuck, shit, damn, hell, pussy-fucking-piece-of-shit, etc,
will never be included in output generated by the OS or IBM utilities.
Thus, they make a perfect debugging tool for searching through
prodigiously-sized FDUMPs. Just do a search on "fuck" (or whatever) and
BOOM! you find out whatever it was you needed to know right away.
Similar uses can also be found in the kernel (and other code), as well.
Well, that's just MHO, and experience,
-- Matthew Vanecek Course of Study: http://www.unt.edu/bcis Visit my Website at http://people.unt.edu/~mev0003 For answers type: perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);' ***************************************************************** For 93 million miles, there is nothing between the sun and my shadow except me. I'm always getting in the way of something...- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/