MacOS ddd substitute

rbd <[email protected]> Tue, 6 Dec 2016 08:49:19 -1000 (HST)
Newsgroups gmane.comp.debugging.ddd.bugs,gmane.comp.debugging.ddd.general
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Hi all,

Many of us (including me) have posted to these lists over the last several 
months regarding two problems with ddd under MacOS, namely (1) the Xt 
inheritance error that is very likely related to ddd's reliance on Motif, 
and (2) gdb errors caused for various reasons, none of which I claim to 
understand. All of the above strikes me as serious Writing On The Wall 
given that (1) Motif is approaching the end of its lifespan, and (2) Apple 
has moved strongly away from gcc/gdb and towards clang/lldb.

ddd could certainly be redone with a different GUI and core debugger 
focus, but that's no small project and I am not aware of anyone working on 
it. In the meantime, I can no longer debug from source on any of my MacOS 
systems and that's a serious problem for me,

SO ...

I have reluctantly decided to dive into Xcode debugging. After searching 
around for advice and spending a couple of days playing with the Xcode 
debugger, I have come up with a very workable recipe for using Xcode's 
debugger without buying into the entire Xcode IDE whole hog, i.e., in a 
standalone-ish mode which is very similar to the manner in which I use 
ddd. I have documented the necessary steps required and am happy to share 
that with anyone who is interested. Please e-mail me directly if you want 
this, as I'm not sure that it would be appropriate to post it on these 
lists (although if I start getting dozens of requests I will probably 
abandon all sense of appropriaty and do exactly that ;-> ).

ddd has been an absolutely indispensable tool to me for many years. I will 
continue to use it on my Linux systems for as long as it works there, and 
maybe I will be amazed by someone getting it going under MacOS again, at 
which point I would likely switch right back to it there as well. Thanks 
to everyone here who has kept ddd going as long as it has!

Roger Davis
Univ. of Hawii