Interactively tracing execution of a command

sage.misc.trace.trace(code, preparse=True)

Evaluate Sage code using the interactive tracer and return the result. The string code must be a valid expression enclosed in quotes (no assignments - the result of the expression is returned). In the Sage notebook this just raises a NotImplementedException.

INPUT:

  • code - str
  • preparse - bool (default: True); if True, run expression through the Sage preparser.

REMARKS: This function is extremely powerful! For example, if you want to step through each line of execution of, e.g., factor(100), type

sage: trace("factor(100)")             # not tested

then at the (Pdb) prompt type s (or step), then press return over and over to step through every line of Python that is called in the course of the above computation. Type ? at any time for help on how to use the debugger (e.g., l lists 11 lines around the current line; bt gives a back trace, etc.).

Setting a break point: If you have some code in a file and would like to drop into the debugger at a given point, put the following code at that point in the file:

import pdb; pdb.set_trace()

For an article on how to use the Python debugger, see http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2005/09/01/debugger.html

TESTS: The only real way to test this is via pexpect spawning a sage subprocess that uses IPython.

sage: import pexpect
sage: s = pexpect.spawn('sage')
sage: _ = s.sendline("trace('print factor(10)'); print 3+97")
sage: _ = s.sendline("s"); _ = s.sendline("c");
sage: _ = s.expect('100')

Seeing the ipdb prompt and the 2 * 5 in the output below is a strong indication that the trace command worked correctly.

sage: print s.before[s.before.find('-'):]
---...
ipdb> c
2 * 5

We test what happens in notebook embedded mode:

sage: sage.plot.plot.EMBEDDED_MODE = True
sage: trace('print factor(10)')
...
NotImplementedError: the trace command is not implemented in the Sage notebook; you must use the command line.

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