Debugging Ada Elaboration Code

Product Family: SCORE
Target CPU: Any
Language: Ada
Host: Any

With Ada applications, it is sometimes useful to be able to step through and debug the elaboration code for the compilation units in the application. This note briefly describes a simple way to debug the elaboration code of any units compiled with debug that works with the SCORE® Multi-Language Debugger, v2.4 and later.

To get to the elaboration of the first unit, at the initial breakpoint (when the debugger starts or after a restart), do a "source step into" either by entering it as a debugger command (step \into) or by clicking on the button in the GUI. If any units have elaboration code for which debug information is available, the debugger will execute to the start of the first such unit. This unit can be debugged as usual. When you leave the code for this unit by doing a step from the end of the unit or by doing a step return, you will be in the linker generated code that calls the elaboration code for each unit. This code has no debug information, and you will get a message to that effect. At that point if you do another "source step into" you will execute to the start of the elaboration of the next unit that has debug information or to the start of your main program (assuming it was compiled with debug).

Note that doing a "source step over" from the initial breakpoint will cause stepping to the start of the main program.