NetLogo Debugging
NetLogo Debugging
NetLogo being interactive makes debugging easy, but I yet to find any tools available for setting breakpoints and stepping through code.
Please guide me if such exist. Or I can achieve the same with the current setup available.
5 Answers
5
I am not aware of such a tool if one exists. For debugging I use meaningful print statements. First I make a switch as a global parameter to set the debug mode on and off, then I add a statement to each method that prints which method updates which variable and in which order they were called (if debug mode is on).
I also use profiler extension which shows how many times each method was called and which one is the most or least time consuming one.
@AbhishekBhatia Its a good question. I hope I find a more efficient approach too :)
– Marzy
Aug 25 '15 at 14:53
There is a logging tool in NetLogo. To stop executing at specific line I use
error "Stop here!" trick.– bergant
Aug 25 '15 at 15:03
error "Stop here!"
Great @bergant I didnt know about that :)
– Marzy
Aug 25 '15 at 15:09
Not existing currently. Still, you can use one of the alternatives from above or you might take a look at user-message (https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/docs/dictionary.html#user-message), which will pop up a dialog. This will also block the execution at that step, although not providing you with a jump-to-next-line mechanism, for me this solution proved to be the best.
user-message
Another possibility is to do the debugging in any modern browser if/when NetLogo Web produces source maps. This way one can set breakpoints in the NetLogo code and use Chrome or FireFox or IE11's developer tools on the NetLogo code.
I have used user-message and inspect together as the debugging tool for NetLogo. Here is a video demo on how to use them to identify the cause of an error.
user-message
inspect
inspect
user-message
NetLogo is all about keeping the code in one spot. When I run a simulation in 2D or 3D, I usually have an idea what my whole system is going to produce at timepoint X. So when I'm testing, I usually color code my agents, the "turtles", around a variable I'm tracking (like number of protein signals etc.)
It can be as simple as making them RED when the variable your wondering about is over a threshold or BLUE when under. Or you can throw in another color, maybe GREEN, so that you track when the turtles of interest fall within the "optimal" range.
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That seems to be good approach. Am still looking for more efficient ones.
– Abhishek Bhatia
Aug 25 '15 at 14:49