Users' Knowledge Base

As pointed out in a comment to this series, the Interpretation Window can be a valid alternative to using DebugView. A few points to consider when choosing either method are listed below.

DebugView

Debug information is routed to DebugView using this type of statement:

<p>DBVOn = ParamToggle("DebugView","OFF|ON",0); // Controls all output  <p>if( DBVOn ) _TRACE("# BuyPrice ="+NumToStr(BuyPrice,1.2));  

Any type of information that can be expressed in string format can be send to DebugView. A few DebugView features are:

– A stand-alone program
– Display accumulates multi-pass information
– Output includes timing information
– Output can be manually or auto saved to a file
– Optional scrolling display
– Copy and paste to/from clipboard
– History depth setting (#lines displayed)
– Filter/Highlight wrt keywords
– Always on top
– Find
– Software Clear display
– Low overhead (depending on the number of _TRACE() statements used)

Interpretation Window

Debug information is routed to the Interpretation Window using this type of statement:

<p>BuyPrice = LastValue(C);  <p>if(Status("Action") == actionCommentary)  
<p>{  
<p>// This code executes only when the Interpretation Window is open.  
<p>printf("Buy=%1.2f\n", BuyPrice);  
<p>}  

Some features offered by the Interpretation Window:

– The Interpretation Window is optimized for Chart-Commentaries
– Only displays info for current pass
– No history
– Copy and paste to clipboard
– An open Interpretation Window adds one full execution cycle to the code.

While not all pros and cons were covered it can be seen from the above listing that DebugView is designed for debugging while the Interpretation Window is not.

When running complex real-time trading systems the additional pass through the AFL code may prove to be too costly in terms of execution speed.

Further comments invited.

Filed by Herman at 3:41 pm under Debugging AFL
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