DDD Debugger Tutorial: Fast Guide to Debugging C++ & C Code

Neural Lantern

Hey coders! Dive into this quick DDD tutorial to learn the Data Display Debugger for C++ and C programs. See how to launch DDD, set breakpoints, view source code, and use the GDB console. I?ll walk you through the basics, but check my GDB video first for a better debugging foundation. If you?re new to GUI debuggers or just curious, this is for you! Subscribe for more programming tips, and let me know in the comments if you want advanced DDD content. Scan the QR code for more tutorials!  Introduction to DDD 00:00:00 DDD vs GDB Comparison 00:00:04 Installation Instructions 00:00:56 Launching DDD 00:01:20 Source Code Window 00:01:57 Setting Breakpoints 00:03:16 Running and Debugging 00:04:08 GDB Console Commands 00:04:21 Modifying Breakpoints 00:05:20 Closing DDD 00:05:36 Recommendation to Learn GDB 00:05:48 Call to Subscribe 00:06:32 Website and Comments 00:07:17  Thanks for watching!  Find us on other social media here: - https://www.NeuralLantern.com/social  Please help support us!  - Subscribing + Sharing on Social Media - Leaving a comment or suggestion - Subscribing to our Blog - Watching the main "pinned" video of this channel for offers and extras

Transcript

00:00hey there in this video i'm going to give you a very very quick overview

00:04of a program called ddd which you can use to debug your programs

00:14disclaimer you should see my gdb video first before you watch this one because it's much more

00:19useful and in my personal opinion gdb is a much better debugger than ddd ddd is actually i think

00:27a wrapper over gdb so it doesn't really add any more functionality it's sort of for people who

00:32like to use guis but the gui is not it's not very good but it's there if you're still struggling with

00:38the command line anyway uh so yeah see my other video if you want to learn about make files uh if

00:44you want to learn about c plus plus c assembly gdb debugging all that stuff are in other videos

00:51but assuming that you know how to use gdb we can start on ddd now ddd anyway if you don't have

00:58ddd on your system you can go sudo apt install ddd i'm on ubuntu you could use whatever package

01:04manage you have on your system like dnf or whatever so sudo apt install ddd i don't have to do that

01:10because uh i already have it on my system unfortunately anyway so uh the first thing

01:16that you can do is you can sort of uh launch it with ddd up here it's called the data display

01:21debugger you can launch it and then you can attach it to your program for me i like to just launch it

01:28uh from the command line i'll type ddd and then the name of my executable i'll build my executable real

01:34fast again this all this stuff is in another video how to build and you know what so forth so i'm going

01:40to build my executable and there it is main so i'm going to go ddd main and this is the uh

01:49i can't remember the name of this already it's the data display debugger yeah i don't really like to use

01:54this anyway you can see that right away there is a source code window visible which sort of looks at

02:01your program's source code if that's not visible you can click on the view menu item up here and start

02:07you know enabling and disabling windows there's a data window to let you look at data there's a

02:12machine code window i'm just going to basically make sure that the gdb console is up and that the

02:18source window is up when i closed both windows hoping that i could show you that i opened both of

02:26them it just shut down the whole program okay anyway so yeah click view and make sure that the source

02:31windows open so we can see our source code and then also make sure that the gdb console window is

02:37open so we can type gdb commands and then um well you know probably if you know gdb you'll you'll

02:45want to start typing commands here you know enter a breakpoint main.cpp line you know whatever but

02:50once you start doing that a lot you'll realize maybe you don't need to be inside of ddd with ddd you

02:56can right click on a line and add a breakpoint manually so that's a little convenient i think we can

03:00do can we do control mouse no there's a lot of obscure areas here well you can go to the preferences

03:08and change the font size i think i'm not going to deal with that in this video but so suppose for the

03:13sake of argument i wanted to break at this line right here i could just right click on it and i have

03:19to hold down the right mouse and say set breakpoint and then i could do the same thing for this set

03:26breakpoint and then for this set breakpoint so it's a little more convenient a little bit faster

03:32if you like looking at the text in this way to set breakpoints and then you can disable breakpoints

03:38and you can delete breakpoints and you can reset the execution position if you're absolutely sure you

03:44know what you're doing you can have your program skip an area and jump somewhere and then once i've kind

03:49of set up my breakpoints i can go up here at the top this is the uh i forgot what window this is called

03:56but i can basically hit run which i accidentally already clicked when i was trying to resize the

04:00window there we go oh i can't resize it okay so we'll go run and uh well now we've already hit a

04:09breakpoint right away notice how at the bottom in the gdb uh console area it says breakpoint 2

04:15at line 36 and then there's a green arrow here letting us know that we hit one of our breakpoints

04:19already so then we can do normal gdb stuff we can go info breakpoints just to kind of see what's in

04:26there and um you can resize with this handle on the very right side i don't think it works in the

04:32middle here i've tried it many times but so you can kind of resize with this handle on the right

04:37side to get more real estate for the gdb panel and so it's telling me all right uh i did info breakpoints

04:44just to see the breakpoints i can go info locals to see my local variables i could print a variable

04:49you know all the all the normal gdb commands i'm gonna hit continue and five to skip the next five times

04:55this breakpoints get hit this breakpoint gets hit uh now the next breakpoint that gets hit is uh

05:01this other one over here i can do the same thing info locals i can see the state of all my variables

05:07you know what is b you know what is i what is a what is whatever and when i'm finished i can say

05:13continue and i can also modify my breakpoints by just sort of like deleting them enabling them

05:18disabling them but that's me trying to type everything in the terminal of course

05:24with ddd you can right click on a breakpoint and disable it or delete it and so forth

05:30when you're eventually done let's see i think you can do kill to kill the process and then uh

05:39you can just kind of exit ddd at this point or you can exit the gdb console with q

05:44and that's it that's the basics for ddd however again i strongly encourage you to learn gdb first and

05:51by the time you do that you will probably not want to use ddd but i have to put up this video

05:56uh regardless let me know if you're interested in very advanced stuff covering ddd i don't know

06:02maybe in the next 10 or 20 years i might upload another ddd video you never know okay thanks for

06:10watching this video um i hope you learned a little bit and i hope you go directly to the gdb video

06:16after this see you in the next one hey everybody thanks for watching this video again from the

06:24bottom of my heart i really appreciate it i do hope you did learn something and have some fun

06:29if you could do me a please a small little favor could you please subscribe and follow this channel

06:35or these videos or whatever it is you do on the current social media website that you're looking

06:40at right now it would really mean the world to me and it'll help make more videos and grow this

06:45community so we'll be able to do more videos longer videos better videos or just i'll be able to keep

06:50making videos in general so please do do me a kindness and uh and subscribe you know sometimes

06:56i'm sleeping in the middle of the night and i just wake up because i know somebody subscribed or

07:00followed it just wakes me up and i get filled with joy that's exactly what happens every single

07:04time so you could do it as a nice favor to me or you could you control me if you want to just wake

07:09me up in the middle of the night just subscribe and then i'll i'll just wake up i promise that's what

07:13will happen also uh if you look at the middle of the screen right now you should see a qr code which you

07:19can scan in order to go to the website which i think is also named somewhere at the bottom of this video

07:24and it'll take you to my main website where you can just kind of like see all the videos i published

07:29and the services and tutorials and things that i offer and all that good stuff and uh

07:36if you have a suggestion for uh uh clarifications or errata or just future videos that you want to see

07:42please leave a comment or if you just want to say hey what's up what's going on you know just send me

07:47a comment whatever i also wake up for those in the middle of the night i get i wake up in a cold sweat

07:51and i'm like it would really it would really mean the world to me i would really appreciate it

07:56so again thank you so much for watching this video and um enjoy the cool music as as i fade

08:04into the darkness which is coming for us all

08:17so

08:30so

Category

Transcript

Recommended