Debugging Applications

Once you've created your form, you'll want to ensure that it runs as expected.  And if you're like me, you'll likely end up with a 'bug' or two.

Well, worry no more!  abcDB 'Desktop Studio' includes the ability to execute your application 'line-by-line'.  Let's see what I'm talking about:

First of all, let's open our abcDB 'REALTOR' database and open the frmMain form.  We'll immediately see the following:

Let's click YES.  We'll then be shown our form:

Now, here's where it get's interesting.  Let's click the SEARCH button and see what happens:

When we're in DEBUG mode, every line of code that executes will be displayed for us.  We can then quite easily determine where any bugs might be.  Here we see the code that is executed when the SEARCH button is clicked.

If you'd like to 'step' through the code line by line, you can do so by pressing the F11 key.  If you'd like to execute all the code at once, you can press F12. 

Since there's only one line of code here, it really doesn't matter which key you press ... let's press F11 for now ...

Ok, so the code behind our SEARCH button worked correctly, because here we are at our 'search' form.

Let's click the CITY SEARCH button:

Now, let's suppose that you've been having difficulties getting this line of code to work properly.  One of the first things you might want to check is the value of the ~CITY~ tag that's used here.  How can we do this?

Simple!  All we need to do is enter the TAG in the 'Immediate Window' at the bottom of the screen.  Let's do that now:

As soon as you press ENTER, you'll be shown the value of ~CITY~:

Cool huh?

You could also have entered a memory variable (ie. <!MyVariable!>) or even a function like CHR(65).

The reality of this is that there's no more 'guessing' what's happening behind the scenes when it comes to your coding.  You'll be able to create powerful mobile applications faster and more effeciently!

Happy coding!