Are there any function level debugging/logging tools for Java?

Question

I'm sorry if the title is confusing but I couldn't think of anything similar to call it. What I'm looking for is if there is any sort of tool (or eclipse plugin, etc) that will log all the translated lines from a program. For example:

int b = 20;
for (int x = 0; x < z; x++)
b = b + 5;

Would get translated into

b = 20
for (int x = 0; 0 < 50; 0++)
b = 20 + 5;

I ask because it seems it wouldn't be too difficult to implement relatively, since we can debug one line at a time and I think it would save an enormous amount of time. If you could just go through a log file and look for your error and check out exactly what line the problem occurred on and the context that caused it then debugging would be a lot easier. XDebug for PHP has function level traces so you can see the value of the variables passed in your program, and have that dumped to a log. I found that it saved me a large amount of debugging time. The problems were usually obvious and easy to fix then.

It would sure beat adding logging statements.

EDIT: I want to clarify that I am not looking for a traditional debugger ala Eclipse style. I'm simply looking for a overall logging of the variables and states.

Answer 1

Eclipse and any IDE worth its salt comes with a debugger that can do this and much more. Rather than print out traces, you can have the program halt at any specific line of code (whenever it is reached, or only when specific conditions are met) and inspect the state of variables at that point, as well as modify variables and execute arbitrary statements to see their return value.

For web applications where the code is running on a server, you can even connect the debugger via the network to a remote JVM.

Here's a tutorial on how to use the eclipse debugger. There's even a plugin that allows you to use it for PHP code.

Answer 2

I think Trace may be what you want, although in practice, I would expect a good debugger with expression evaluation and conditional breakpoints might solve your overall problem more quickly. Note that Trace is written to the JPDA and its code is available.

Answer 3

I don't understand how such a tool would work. What would it do for conditionals? For user input?

int x=getUserInput();
print(x);  // What would your translator show for this line?

Also, it sounds a bit like any such tool could be used to solve the Halting Problem...just look at the last line.