Issue
Following is a minimal, contrived example:
read :: FilePath -> Aff String
read f = do
log ("File: " <> f) -- (1)
readTextFile UTF8 f -- (2)
I would like to do some debug logging in (1), before a potential error on (2) occurs. Executing following code in Spago REPL works for success cases so far:
$ spago repl
> launchAff_ $ read "test/data/tree/root.txt"
File: test/data/tree/root.txt
unit
Problem: If there is an error with (2) - file is directory here - , (1) seems to be not executed at all:
$ spago repl
> launchAff_ $ read "test/data/tree"
~/purescript-book/exercises/chapter9/.psci_modules/node_modules/Effect.Aff/foreign.js:532
throw util.fromLeft(step);
^
[Error: EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, read] {
errno: -21,
code: 'EISDIR',
syscall: 'read'
}
The original problem is more complex including several layers of recursions (see E-Book exercise 3), where I need logging to debug above error.
Questions
How can I properly log regardless upcoming errors here?
(Optional) Is there a more sophisticated, well-established debugging alternative - purescript-debugger? A decicated VS Code debug extension/functionality would be the cherry on the cake.
First of all, the symptoms you observe do not mean that the first line doesn't execute. It does always execute, you're just not seeing output from it due to how console works in the PureScript REPL. The output gets swallowed. Not the only problem with REPL, sadly.
You can verify that the first line is always executed by replacing log with throwError and observing that the error always gets thrown. Or, alternatively, you can make the first line modify a mutable cell instead of writing to the console, and then examine the cell's contents.
Finally, this only happens in REPL. If you put that launchAff_ call inside main and run the program, you will always get the console output.
Now to the actual question at hand: how to debug trace.
Logging to console is fine if you can afford it, but there is a more elegant way: Debug.trace.
This function has a hidden effect - i.e. its type says it's pure, but it really produces an effect when called. This little lie lets you use trace in a pure setting and thus debug pure code. No need for Effect! This is ok as long as used for debugging only, but don't put it in production code.
The way it works is that it takes two parameters: the first one gets printed to console and the second one is a function to be called after printing, and the result of the whole thing is whatever that function returns. For example:
calculateSomething :: Int -> Int -> Int
calculateSomething x y =
trace ("x = " <> show x) \_ ->
x + y
main :: Effect Unit
main =
log $ show $ calculateSomething 37 5
> npx spago run
'x = 37'
42
The first parameter can be anything at all, not just a string. This lets you easily print a lot of stuff:
calculateSomething :: Int -> Int -> Int
calculateSomething x y =
trace { x, y } \_ ->
x + y
> npx spago run
{ x: 37, y: 5 }
42
Or, applying this to your code:
read :: FilePath -> Aff String
read f = trace ("File: " <> f) \_ -> do
readTextFile UTF8 f
But here's a subtle detail: this tracing happens as soon as you call read, even if the resulting Aff will never be actually executed. If you need tracing to happen on effectful execution, you'll need to make the trace call part of the action, and be careful not to make it the very first action in the sequence:
read :: FilePath -> Aff String
read f = do
pure unit
trace ("File: " <> f) \_ -> pure unit
readTextFile UTF8 f
It is, of course, a bit inconvenient to do this every time you need to trace in an effectful context, so there is a special function that does it for you - it's called traceM:
read :: FilePath -> Aff String
read f = do
traceM ("File: " <> f)
readTextFile UTF8 f
If you look at its source code, you'll see that it does exactly what I did in the example above.
The sad part is that trace won't help you in REPL when an exception happens, because it's still printing to console, so it'll still get swallowed for the same reasons.
But even when it doesn't get swallowed, the output is a bit garbled, because trace actually outputs in color (to help you make it out among other output), and PureScript REPL has a complicated relationship with color:
> calculateSomething 37 5
←[32m'x = 37'←[39m
42
In addition to Fyodor Soikin's great answer, I found a variant using VS Code debug view.
1.) Make sure to build with sourcemaps:
spago build --purs-args "-g sourcemaps"
2.) Add debug configuration to VS Code launch.json:
{
"version": "0.2.0",
"configurations": [
{
"type": "pwa-node",
"request": "launch",
"name": "Launch Program",
"skipFiles": ["<node_internals>/**"],
"runtimeArgs": ["-e", "require('./output/Main/index.js').main()"],
"smartStep": true // skips files without (valid) source map
}
]
}
Replace "./output/Main/index.js" / .main() with the compiled .js file / function to be debugged.
3.) Set break points and step through the .purs file via sourcemap support.
I want to be able to convert markdown italics and boldface to latex versions on the fly (i.e., give a text string(s) return a text string(s)). I thought easy. Wrong! (Which it still may be). See the sill buisness and error I tried at the bottom.
What I have (note the starting asterisk that's been escaped as in markdown):
x <- "\\*note: I *like* chocolate **milk** too ***much***!"
What I would like:
"*note: I \\emph{like} chocolate \\textbf{milk} too \\textbf{\\emph{much}}!"
I'm not attached to regex but would prefer a base solution (though not essential).
Silly business:
helper <- function(ins, outs, x) {
gsub(paste0(ins[1], ".+?", ins[2]), paste0(outs[1], ".+?", outs[2]), x)
}
helper(rep("***", 2), c("\\textbf{\\emph{", "}}"), x)
Error in gsub(paste0(ins[1], ".+?", ins[2]), paste0(outs[1], ".+?", outs[2]), :
invalid regular expression '***.+?***', reason 'Invalid use of repetition operators'
I have this toy that Ananda Mahto helped me make if it's helpful. You could access it from reports via wheresPandoc <- reports:::wheresPandoc
EDIT Per Ben's comments I tried:
action <- paste0(" echo ", x, " | ", wheresPandoc(), " -t latex ")
system(action)
*note: I *like* chocolate **milk** too ***much***! | C:\PROGRA~2\Pandoc\bin\pandoc.exe -t latex
EDIT2 Per Dason's comments I tried:
out <- paste("echo", shQuote(x), "|", wheresPandoc(), " -t latex"); system(out)
system(out, intern = T)
> system(out, intern = T)
\*note: I *like* chocolate **milk** too ***much***! | C:\PROGRA~2\Pandoc\bin\pandoc.exe -t latex
The lack of pipes on Windows made this tricky, but you can get around it using input to provide the stdin:
> x = system("pandoc -t latex", intern=TRUE, input="\\*note: I *like* chocolate **milk** too ***much***!")
> x
[1] "*note: I \\emph{like} chocolate \\textbf{milk} too \\textbf{\\emph{much}}!"
Noting I am working on windows and from ?system
This means that redirection, pipes, DOS internal commands, ... cannot be used
and the note from ?system2
Note
system2 is a more portable and flexible interface than system,
introduced in R 2.12.0. It allows redirection of output without
needing to invoke a shell on Windows, a portable way to set
environment variables for the execution of command, and finer control
over the redirection of stdout and stderr. Conversely, system (and
shell on Windows) allows the invocation of arbitrary command lines.
Using system2
system2('pandoc', '-t latex', input = '**em**', stdout = TRUE)
I'm running into a problem with the MNP package which I've traced to an unfortunate call to deparse (whose maximum width is limited to 500 characters).
Background (easily skippable if you're bored)
Because mnp uses a somewhat idiosyncratic syntax to allow for varying choice sets (you include cbind(choiceA,choiceB,...) in the formula definition), the left hand side of my formula call is 1700 characters or so when model.matrix.default calls deparse on it. Since deparse supports a maximum width.cutoff of 500 characters, the sapply(attr(t, "variables"), deparse, width.cutoff = 500)[-1L] line in model.matrix.default has as its first element:
[1] "cbind(plan1, plan2, plan3, plan4, plan5, plan6, plan7, plan8, plan9, plan10, plan11, plan12, plan13, plan14, plan15, plan16, plan17, plan18, plan19, plan20, plan21, plan22, plan23, plan24, plan25, plan26, plan27, plan28, plan29, plan30, plan31, plan32, plan33, plan34, plan35, plan36, plan37, plan38, plan39, plan40, plan41, plan42, plan43, plan44, plan45, plan46, plan47, plan48, plan49, plan50, plan51, plan52, plan53, plan54, plan55, plan56, plan57, plan58, plan59, plan60, plan61, plan62, plan63, "
[2] " plan64, plan65, plan66, plan67, plan68, plan69, plan70, plan71, plan72, plan73, plan74, plan75, plan76, plan77, plan78, plan79, plan80, plan81, plan82, plan83, plan84, plan85, plan86, plan87, plan88, plan89, plan90, plan91, plan92, plan93, plan94, plan95, plan96, plan97, plan98, plan99, plan100, plan101, plan102, plan103, plan104, plan105, plan106, plan107, plan108, plan109, plan110, plan111, plan112, plan113, plan114, plan115, plan116, plan117, plan118, plan119, plan120, plan121, plan122, plan123, "
[3] " plan124, plan125, plan126, plan127, plan128, plan129, plan130, plan131, plan132, plan133, plan134, plan135, plan136, plan137, plan138, plan139, plan140, plan141, plan142, plan143, plan144, plan145, plan146, plan147, plan148, plan149, plan150, plan151, plan152, plan153, plan154, plan155, plan156, plan157, plan158, plan159, plan160, plan161, plan162, plan163, plan164, plan165, plan166, plan167, plan168, plan169, plan170, plan171, plan172, plan173, plan174, plan175, plan176, plan177, plan178, plan179, "
[4] " plan180, plan181, plan182, plan183, plan184, plan185, plan186, plan187, plan188, plan189, plan190, plan191, plan192, plan193, plan194, plan195, plan196, plan197, plan198, plan199, plan200, plan201, plan202, plan203, plan204, plan205, plan206, plan207, plan208, plan209, plan210, plan211, plan212, plan213, plan214, plan215, plan216, plan217, plan218, plan219, plan220, plan221, plan222, plan223, plan224, plan225, plan226, plan227, plan228, plan229, plan230, plan231, plan232, plan233, plan234, plan235, "
[5] " plan236, plan237, plan238, plan239, plan240, plan241, plan242, plan243, plan244, plan245, plan246, plan247, plan248, plan249, plan250, plan251, plan252, plan253, plan254, plan255, plan256, plan257, plan258, plan259, plan260, plan261, plan262, plan263, plan264, plan265, plan266, plan267, plan268, plan269, plan270, plan271, plan272, plan273, plan274, plan275, plan276, plan277, plan278, plan279, plan280, plan281, plan282, plan283, plan284, plan285, plan286, plan287, plan288, plan289, plan290, plan291, "
[6] " plan292, plan293, plan294, plan295, plan296, plan297, plan298, plan299, plan300, plan301, plan302, plan303, plan304, plan305, plan306, plan307, plan308, plan309, plan310, plan311, plan312, plan313)"
When model.matrix.default tests this against the variables in the data.frame, it returns an error.
The problem
To get around this, I've written a new deparse function:
deparse <- function (expr, width.cutoff = 60L, backtick = mode(expr) %in%
c("call", "expression", "(", "function"), control = c("keepInteger",
"showAttributes", "keepNA"), nlines = -1L) {
ret <- .Internal(deparse(expr, width.cutoff, backtick, .deparseOpts(control), nlines))
paste0(ret,collapse="")
}
However, when I run mnp again and step through, it returns the same error for the same reason (base::deparse is being run, not my deparse).
This is somewhat surprising to me, as what I expect is more typified by this example, where the user-defined function temporarily over-writes the base function:
> print <- function() {
+ cat("user-defined print ran\n")
+ }
> print()
user-defined print ran
I realize the right way to solve this problem is to rewrite model.matrix.default, but as a tool for debugging I'm curious how to force it to use my deparse and why the anticipated (by me) behavior is not happening here.
The functions fixInNamespace and assignInNamespace are provided to allow editing of existing functions. You could try ... but I will not since mucking with deparse looks too dangerous:
assignInNamespace("deparse",
function (expr, width.cutoff = 60L, backtick = mode(expr) %in%
c("call", "expression", "(", "function"), control = c("keepInteger",
"showAttributes", "keepNA"), nlines = -1L) {
ret <- .Internal(deparse(expr, width.cutoff, backtick, .deparseOpts(control), nlines))
paste0(ret,collapse="")
} , "base")
There is an indication on the help page that the use of such functions has restrictions and I would not be surprised that such core function might have additional layers of protection. Since it works via side-effect, you should not need to assign the result.
This is how packages with namespaces search for functions, as described in Section 1.6, Package Namespaces of Writing R Extensions
Namespaces are sealed once they are loaded. Sealing means that imports
and exports cannot be changed and that internal variable bindings
cannot be changed. Sealing allows a simpler implementation strategy
for the namespace mechanism. Sealing also allows code analysis and
compilation tools to accurately identify the definition corresponding
to a global variable reference in a function body.
The namespace controls the search strategy for variables used by
functions in the package. If not found locally, R searches the package
namespace first, then the imports, then the base namespace and then
the normal search path.
Is there any way to view the reduction steps in haskell, i.e trace the recursive function calls made? For example, chez scheme provides us with trace-lambda. Is there an equivalent form in Haskell?
You could try inserting Debug.Trace.trace in places you want to trace, but this has the tendency of (a) producing wildly out-of-order output, as your trace statement may belong to a thunk that isn't evaluated until far far away from the original call, and (b) changing the runtime behavior of your program, if tracing requires evaluating things that wouldn't otherwise have been evaluated (yet).
Is this for debugging? If so...
Hat modifies your source code to output tracing which can be viewed after running. The output should be pretty close to what you want: the example on their homepage is
For example, the computation of the faulty program
main = let xs :: [Int]
xs = [4*2,5 `div` 0,5+6]
in print (head xs,last' xs)
last' (x:xs) = last' xs
last' [x] = x
gives the result
(8, No match in pattern.
and the Hat viewing tools can be used to explore its behaviour as follows:
Hat-stack
For aborted computations, that is computations that terminated with an error message or were interrupted, hat-stack shows in which function call the computation was aborted. It does so by showing a virtual stack of function calls (redexes). Thus, every function call shown on the stack caused the function call above it. The evaluation of the top stack element caused the error (or during its evaluation the computation was interrupted). The stack shown is virtual, because it does not correspond to the actual runtime stack. The actual runtime stack enables lazy evaluation whereas the virtual stack corresponds to a stack that would be used for eager (strict) evaluation.
Using the same example program as above, hat-stack shows
$ hat-stack Example
Program terminated with error:
No match in pattern.
Virtual stack trace:
(Last.hs:6) last' []
(Last.hs:6) last' [_]
(Last.hs:6) last' [_,_]
(Last.hs:4) last' [8,_,_]
(unknown) main
$
These days, GHCi (≥6.8.1) also comes with a debugger:
$ ghci -fbreak-on-exception
GHCi, version 6.10.1: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ :? for help
Loading package ghc-prim ... linking ... done.
Loading package integer ... linking ... done.
Loading package base ... linking ... done.
Prelude> :l Example.hs
[1 of 1] Compiling Main ( Example.hs, interpreted )
Example.hs:5:0:
Warning: Pattern match(es) are overlapped
In the definition of `last'': last' [x] = ...
Ok, modules loaded: Main.
*Main> :trace main
(8,Stopped at <exception thrown>
_exception :: e = _
[<exception thrown>] *Main> :back
Logged breakpoint at Example.hs:(5,0)-(6,12)
_result :: t
[-1: Example.hs:(5,0)-(6,12)] *Main> :hist
-1 : last' (Example.hs:(5,0)-(6,12))
-2 : last' (Example.hs:5:15-22)
-3 : last' (Example.hs:(5,0)-(6,12))
-4 : last' (Example.hs:5:15-22)
-5 : last' (Example.hs:(5,0)-(6,12))
-6 : last' (Example.hs:5:15-22)
-7 : last' (Example.hs:(5,0)-(6,12))
-8 : main (Example.hs:3:25-32)
-9 : main (Example.hs:2:17-19)
-10 : main (Example.hs:2:16-34)
-11 : main (Example.hs:3:17-23)
-12 : main (Example.hs:3:10-33)
<end of history>
[-1: Example.hs:(5,0)-(6,12)] *Main> :force _result
*** Exception: Example.hs:(5,0)-(6,12): Non-exhaustive patterns in function last'
[-1: Example.hs:(5,0)-(6,12)] *Main> :back
Logged breakpoint at Example.hs:5:15-22
_result :: t
xs :: [t]
[-2: Example.hs:5:15-22] *Main> :force xs
xs = []
While not as nice, it has the benefit of being easily available, and being usable without recompiling your code.
There's a reduction count in hugs, if that helps?
Alternatively, could you use something like the hugs hood to wrap your code, to get more detail around what it's doing at each step?
Nothing of the kind is built into the Haskell standard.
I would hope that the Helium graphical interpreter would offer something like this, but the web page is silent on the topic.
A partial solution is to use vacuum to visualize data structures.
I've seen some gif animations of fold, scan and others, but I can't find them at the moment. I think Cale Gibbard made the animations.