Debugging in the simulator

Some errors only show over time. The pantry cooler switches, just far too often – and in the game you only notice that after half an hour from the power use. In the IC10 coder's simulator you fast-forward that half hour in seconds.

Stopping where it gets interesting#

• Breakpoint: click a line number. “Run” stops before that line.
• Step runs exactly one line, Tick a whole tick – up to the next yield, a sleep or the 128 instructions.
• Stop on error halts on the line that raises a runtime error.
• Strict mode only allows LogicTypes that are entered on the device – just as real devices do not know every value.

Watching registers#

The register table shows every value with its alias name. With the curve button you add a register to the history and see how it changes over many ticks. Under writes you find which line wrote which value into which device. If the chip writes something you do not expect, you find the line there.

Recreating scenarios#

Devices in the simulator have no physics. You add it yourself:

With both together the pantry swings like in the game: it gets warm, the cooler starts, it cools down. In the history of on you see straight away whether the hysteresis is right. Here it is the wrong way round:

sgt tmp temp AUS     # bug: this should be EIN
or on on tmp
sge tmp temp EIN     # bug: this should be AUS
and on on tmp

With swapped limits the cooler switches on at 6 °C and off again just below 6 °C. The history shows twitching instead of long cooling phases.