Julia Debugger

This is an English document for our Julia Debugger of Julia-IntelliJ. Our debugger is a wrapper based on Keno Fischer’s DebuggerFramework and ASTInterpreter2.

First of all, thanks to Keno!

Overview

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Installation & Usage (from GitHub repository)

Install IntelliJ IDEA (or other JetBrains IntelliJ platform IDEs such as PyCharm / WebStorm / GoLand / and even Android Studio :joy:).

Setup Julia in IntelliJ

Dependencies

  • ASTInterpreter2#73711a4
  • DebuggerFramework#78d649e
  • JSON
  • Julia 0.7+

Note!!! #73711a4 and #78d649e followed is required when adding!

add packages

(v1.0) pkg> add ASTInterpreter2#73711a4
(v1.0) pkg> add DebuggerFramework#78d649e
(v1.0) pkg> add JSON

Create a Julia project with the plugin, and write simple example codes:

function func()
    i = 10
    while i>0
        println(sin(i))
        i-=2
    end
end

@enter func()

use @enter macro before a function call expression as ASTInterpreter2 does. And put a breakpoint at any line (which is useless right now but necessary for the debugger). The work is done by the @enter macro, not breakpoints.

then you’ll notice that the Debug button at upper right corner is enabled, which is shown as a green bug. Press it!

Note!!!

If you use this debugger under Windows, the first time you run the debugger may froze your IDE about 2 minutes tested on my PC, while it’ll become faster afterwards. So we strongly recommend not to use this debugger under Windows.

Debug mode

Relayout your debug panel like this by dragging:

relayout You can see call stackframes at the left of panel and local variables at right.

Functions

step over

Step Over Run next call in current file. The nc command for DebuggerFramework.
Step Into Run the next call into a deeper stackframes. The sg command for DebuggerFramework.
Froce Step Into (maybe useless). s command.
Step Out Run out of current stackframes. finish command.
Run to cursor (unsupported currently). Do not try this button.
Rerun Rerun the Julia program and debug.
Resume ▍▶ Rerun the debug when debug session is not terminated. (Note that debug session will not exit until you press the Red Stop Rectangle Button)

Thanks