Debugging CFront C++ on RISC OS with Acorn / ROOL DDE DDT
Channel: RISC OS Community on GitHub
Date: 2023-07-02

#cpp #cfront #tutorial #debugging #arm #risc_os #programming #retrocoding #debugger #debug 

In this In-Depth video, Paolo Fabio Zaino shows us how to debug the old CFront C++ code on RISC OS using DDE DDT Debugger. Please note this video is not about learning how to code in C++, it focuses only on the distinctive elements related to RISC OS.

This video is on the special In-Depth format, which means the video is a full 1 hour long "mini-course" that will give all the info needed to learn the techniques described.

To get all the sources in this video go to:
https://github.com/RISC-OS-Community/DDECPP-Tutorials/tree/main/src

C++ used in this video it's a very old one, predates CFront 3.1 which itself predates C++98! In particoular, CFront for RISC OS also doesn't have all the original CFront libraries, so, in this video you'll see references on using malloc/realloc for strings etc. which are C references and that is because DDE C++ doesn't have C++ Strings library.

More info/tutorials on using Acorn / ROOL DDT here:
https://paolozaino.wordpress.com/tag/ddt-tutorial/

Chapters:

0:00 - Intro
0:38 - News
1:07 - Why DDT couldn't debug previous video's code correctly?
4:48 - What can we do to make C++ sources DDT friendly?
11:25 - New code example to help debugging private member's variables
24:07 - DDT in action, debugging private member's variables
35:22 - How strings are stored in memory on ARM32 architecture and RISC OS
49:47 - How realloc works
55:47 - Outro