Hi there, I just wanted to ask about the state of the debugger in Julia. I am coming from Matlab and the debugger there is quite important for me to see where something is going wrong. For example, using NLsolve is a bit of a black box for me. If it does not work, I don’t know where to start to look for the problem. In contrast, in the meantime I copied the code to Matlab and could stop during the the execution of fsolve and check what is going wrong. Now it works in Matlab, but still it does not in Julia, although the code should be 1:1 equivalent. I just would like to know if there is a plan on the development of the debugger. Thank you very much!

Yes, there is a debugger: https://github.com/Keno/Gallium.jl It has not been updated to 0.6 yet, but I know that is a high priority and should be done relatively soon.

It’s worth noting that the latest Juno update has disabled Gallium integration until the Julia 0.6 update is done.

While you’re asking for a debugger, you could also post the NLsolve question here on discourse (there’s not really a dedicated sub, but you could maybe try Optimization (Mathematical) - JuliaLang ). I’ll be happy to assist!

Thank you for all the replies. I will definitely follow it more closely and see how it plays out with 0.6. Also thanks to pkofod, I might actually post there something next week as I get back to Uni. I am kind of curious to know, why it does not work in Julia at the moment.

ASTInterpreter2.jl works quite well in my experience, but doesn’t provide any breakpoints and stuff. Juno integration should hopefully be ready soonish (no promises though).

What is the current state of the debugger support (with breakpoints)? Will it be available in Julia 1.1 at least?

The development of a debugger is somewhat independent of the Julia version, because it is simply another package. Also, notice that I said a debugger, because it is possible for there to be many different julia debuggers, each with a different approach. To my knowledge, the only Julia 1.0 compatible debugger is Rebugger.jl, but I’m sure more are on the way.

Due to the closure of a related thread, I choose to ask my questions here - Is an official Julia-v1.0-compatible debugger being considered/planned at the moment? By ‘official’, I mean a debugger like the one (ASTIntepreter2) which works with v0.6 and can be embedded in JuliaPro. If so, when will it be available? I know that an exact date is impossible. So I’m asking for a (very, or very very) rough estimate, which, at least, can give me a hope. I really really really depend on a reliable debugger to work with large packages written by others. So any info is much appreciated!!!

Since the thread about debuggers (here) was closed, I’m adding my answer to it here - I rely heavily on debuggers and the lack of a proper debugger for Julia and Juno is one of the main reasons I don’t switch to Julia. I use breakpoints, most of all, as a way of finding my own mistakes - I can write a very readable code in Julia, but even in the most readable code it is easy to miss a displaced minus sign, an edge case not handled in some inner function etc. When working with a large code divided to many sections, breakpoints can save hours looking for the problem, and an uncountable amount of frustration! Same goes for when using someone else’s code, especially when this code is meant to create abstraction of the methods I eventually plan to use - in general I’m not even trying to understand this code (otherwise, it wouldn’t be abstraction), but when something is not working as I expect, I need all the help I can get understanding it.

State of the Debugger

General Usage

StefanKarpinski November 16, 2018, 10:18pm 15

People posting here may be interested in Compiler work priorities in which I’ve outlined the rough priorities for compiler-related work, including tools like debuggers.

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Debugger available for: Julia 1.0.1 Juno-IDE? New to Julia	5	2297	February 19, 2019
[ANN] Rebugger: interactive debugging for Julia 0.7/1.0 Community announcement	25	8097	August 24, 2018
New Julia debugger in Juno Juno debug	13	5282	April 5, 2019
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State of the Debugger

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