Tuba News
2.5.b1 uploaded (Beta Itcl support) 06-Jan-99
2.4.p1 uploaded 26-Nov-98
2.4 uploaded 11-Nov-98
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What is Tuba

Tuba is a debugger for Tcl/Tk/Itcl programs. The goal of Tuba is to provide a debugging environment similar to traditional source level debuggers for other languages. 

Here are some of the currently supported features of Tuba: 

  • Able to debug any Tcl/Tk 8.0 based interpreter 
  • Source code viewing; you see the source as you step through it 
  • Common debugging operations such as continue, step, step over 
  • Set breakpoints on specific lines or specific proc entries 
  • View variables, with the option to set a watchpoint, a breakpoint that is triggered when the variable is modified 
  • Can intercept errors as they occur and look at the stack or variables in the context of the error. 

Requirements For Running Tuba

Tuba requires Tcl/Tk 8.0 or any interpreter built using 8.0 libraries. This is for the namespace functionality. Everything is written in pure Tcl/Tk, although a couple of included shared libraries can be used for increased speed. All you really need is some Tcl/Tk source code to debug! 

If you want to debug [incr tcl] scripts, you'll need the new itcl3.0 release and at least tcl/tk 8.0.3.

Tuba has been tested and run on Unix-based systems (Linux and SunOS), Windows 95, and Windows NT; however, it should run with little to no modifications on all Tcl-supported platforms. 


Screenshots of Tuba

Here are some screenshots of Tuba running: 

Version Descriptions and Downloading

  • Tuba 2.5.b1 Uploaded 01/06/99. This is a beta release with preliminary Itcl 3.0 support. I don't use itcl, so I'm sure there are lots of bugs associated with this release, thus the beta version. I have tested Tuba on numerous demos in the iwidgets directory, and it seems to work. See the CHANGES.
  • Tuba 2.4.p1 Uploaded 11/26/98. This patch fixes a few bugs that were introduced with the 2.4 changes, plus a couple that have just been discovered. To see the bugs fixed, look at CHANGES.
  • Tuba 2.4 Uploaded 11/11/98. This release has many bug fixes that have been nagging me for awhile. I also managed to get in a few new features:
    • proc exclusions - a facility to exclude certain procs from being instrumented and thus not debugged.
    • sessions - you can now save your debug sessions in a file for later retrieval. This includes breakpoints, options, etc.
    • Many more changes listed in the CHANGES file.
    • Download one of these:
    • The parsers have a small bug fix in them (these are optional):
    • The User's Guide has been updated. I've added a section called What's New in 2.4. This will give the lowdown on the new features and big fixes. Read it here. It is also included in one of the above archive files.
  • Old versions available upon request

Installing Tuba

  1. First get the distribution tar or zip file. 
  2. Unpack or unzip it in a directory where you will run Tuba. 
  3. That's the minimum you have to do. Just run the tuba program. See the README file in the tuba directory for more installation details. 
For Windows users, you can create an association for the sessions files to bring up the session in tuba. An installation script will do this in the future, but for now you'll have to do it by hand. Here are the basic instructions: 
  1. Bring up the Folder Options window
  2. Select the File Types tab
  3. Click the New Type... button
  4. Set the Description to "Tuba Session File"
  5. set the Associated Extension to "ses"
  6. Click the New... button for a new action
  7. Set Action to open
  8. Set the Application to the following, substituting <wishdir> for the directory you installed wish80 in and <tubadir> for the directory you installed tuba in:

  9.  

     

    "C:<wishdir>\wish80.exe" "C:<tubadir>\tuba.tk" -- -s "%1"

You can also add a new action to .tcl extensions for debug so that you can easily load up a Tcl/Tk source file in the debugger: 
  1. Bring up the Folder Options window
  2. Select the File Types tab
  3. Find the registered file type TclScript
  4. Select it and hit the Edit... button
  5. Click the New... button for a new action
  6. Set Action to debug

  7. Set the Application to the following, substituting <wishdir> for the directory you installed wish80 in and <tubadir> for the directory you installed tuba in: 

    "C:<wishdir>\wish80.exe" "C:<tubadir>\tuba.tk" "%1"



Legal Mumbo Jumbo

Tuba is released under the starving Artist Artistic License. Details found in the LICENSE file. Basically, you can do anything you want with Tuba except make money off it. To do that you have to make arrangements with me.