Emacs debugging help...

Emacs debugging help...

[eric]

Hello All,

I've recently decided to begin developing and debugging emacs lisp
programs.  However, I'm not sure how to use the debugger, and, for
anything more complicated than a simple function, the documentation
I've discovered is less than adequate.

The particulars of the current situation are:

I'm using VM for reading mail.  When my sister sends me email from
work, she uses Microsoft Outlook, which writes HTML mail.  Now, I know
this is wrong, and I've tried to convince her otherwise, but at this
point the politics are less interesting to me than the technology.  In
any case, VM tries to display the HTML email with w3, and w3 fails
(somewhere).  However, VM is written well, and catches the error, and
does something else.  I want to figure out what went wrong, that I
might fix it.

VM reports the failure to *Messages* as

Inline HTML display failed: (wrong-type-argument stringp nil)

which is generated in a particular function in a 

(condition-case 
   ...)

Now, when I set 'debug-on-error' to t, Emacs doesn't drop into the
debugger at the time this error is raised.  I guess that's because it
doesn't pick this up as an error, (because the error never makes it to
the toplevel?) and I have no debugging information; just the (sort of)
bad behaviour.

Now, if I put a 

(debug) 

just before the function call in the VM source code, recompile and
reinstall, I get into the (not too well understood by me yet) debugger
at around the right time, but then there's still reams of code to step
through (manually, with the 'd' key).

Clearly, there has to be a better way.  What am I missing?

What I'm looking for are useful tips, tricks, and general debugging
advice, that I might be a more productive and useful member of the
community.

I have the latest VM and w3 sources, and would like to understand
these projects better.  I figure that fixing things which bother me is
a good way to start.

Thanks,

Eric
** 
Eric Moncrieff                                    eric@mantis.styx.org

"If, in your bold creative way, you hold yourself free to draw a 
giraffe with a short neck, you will really find that you are not 
free to draw a giraffe."  --G. K. Chesterton
**
GPG Fingerprint: C278 AECC 3292 C26B E9DA  0FD7 EE20 4AA7 E1AD 0D79

Re: Emacs debugging help...

[D. Goel]

eric@mantis.styx.org writes:


[...]

> 
> Clearly, there has to be a better way.  What am I missing?

You could try (find-function) to go to the suspected function and then
(edebug-defun) .. see the manual for the latter..  

DG                                 http://deego.gnufans.org/~deego/
--
RMS on Treacherous Computing and Digital Restrictions Management ---
http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/10/21/1449250.shtml?tid=19

Re: Emacs debugging help...

[Ivan Kanis]

    eric> I'm using VM for reading mail.  When my sister sends me
    eric> email from work, she uses Microsoft Outlook, which writes
    eric> HTML mail.  Now, I know this is wrong, and I've tried to
    eric> convince her otherwise, but at this point the politics are
    eric> less interesting to me than the technology.

I know the problem, here is the cure.

I looked at Outlook Express and it possible to turn off html e-mail
per recipient. Here are the instructions to send to your sister:

Tools -> Address Book
Select my name in the list of addresses
Click on the properties button
Click on the "name" tab
Check the checkbox that says "Send e-mail with plain text only"

Ivan
-- 
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
|  "The books that the world calls immoral are the books  |     Ivan Kanis    |
|  that show the world its own shame."                    |  ivank@juliva.com |
|  (Oscar Wilde)                                          |   www.juliva.com  |
*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------/

RE: Emacs debugging help...

[Bingham, Jay]

Ivan,

You gave the instructions for Outlook Express, Eric said Outlook.  They are different.  
The only per addressee option that I found in Outlook is to always send in rich text rich text format.  I don't think that this will help Eric either.

-_
J_)
C_)ingham
.    HP - NonStop Austin Software & Services - Software Product Assurance
.    Austin, TX
. Language is the apparel in which your thoughts parade in public.
. Never clothe them in vulgar and shoddy attire.          -Dr. George W. Crane-

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Ivan Kanis [mailto:ivank@juliva.com] 
Sent:	Saturday, November 02, 2002 11:48 AM
To:	help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject:	Re: Emacs debugging help...


    eric> I'm using VM for reading mail.  When my sister sends me
    eric> email from work, she uses Microsoft Outlook, which writes
    eric> HTML mail.  Now, I know this is wrong, and I've tried to
    eric> convince her otherwise, but at this point the politics are
    eric> less interesting to me than the technology.

I know the problem, here is the cure.

I looked at Outlook Express and it possible to turn off html e-mail
per recipient. Here are the instructions to send to your sister:

Tools -> Address Book
Select my name in the list of addresses
Click on the properties button
Click on the "name" tab
Check the checkbox that says "Send e-mail with plain text only"

Ivan
-- 
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
|  "The books that the world calls immoral are the books  |     Ivan Kanis    |
|  that show the world its own shame."                    |  ivank@juliva.com |
|  (Oscar Wilde)                                          |   www.juliva.com  |
*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------/
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