An unusual debugging tool taken from 64 bit MASM for PB

[hutch--]

I have a 64 bit tool written in 64 bit MASM (a real bloated pig at 12288 bytes) that connects to a running app via the system provided memory mapped file technique.

It just happens that the macro system in PB is powerful enough to be able to use a tool of this type. The basic description of the tool is a display window that displays text sent via a memory mapped file triggered by a normal Windows message. As with 64 bit MASM, it works by using a number of macros in the PB source code and any basic string that you point at it will be displayed in the display window.

The virtue of a tool like this is even if the app locks up and crashes, it is not effected and retains the last data sent to it so you know where an app fails. The PB macros work in both PBWIN and PBCC.

In the attached zip file is a test app, the LiveDB.exe app and a necessary PB library to provide the memory mapped file code (plus a few others). The detail of how to use the macros is in the file "InitLiveDB.inc", the basic are DBinit to get it all going, the "mmflib.lib" library file must be available to the app being debugged and you close it down using the DBend macro.

By including the "InitLiveDB.inc" file and making sure the library is available to the app being tested, it is in fact easy enough to use.

With the DBout macro, as long as you know how to construct a basic dynamic string, you can point anything at it and it will be displayed in the debug window.