[ufo]

One neat trick that I really like for ptrintf debugging is using conditional breakpoints and putting the call to the printing function inside the breakpoint condition. This lets you add print statements without editing the original code and makes it very easy to toggle them on and off.

[masklinn]

Some IDEs have support for doing that without the hack. Xcode for instance, when you set a breakpoint you can edit it to not break, and execute custom actions (logging stuff, executing debugger commands, executing a shell script, executing actionscript, playing a sound).

A condition, if set, will then apply to whether the action should or should not be applied.

The great part is they can all be combined, so you can setup a breakpoint which will pre-log the info you know you'll need then drop you in the visual debugger with all base information waiting for you.

[haberman]

Clever -- I've never heard or thought of that!

When I read about this more, it sounds like you can make watchpoints conditional too. You could use this pattern to print a transcript of every change that happens to a data value! Though I'm not sure if the watchpoint condition has easy access to the source file/line, so it might not be easy to log what code was changing the value.