DEBUGGING PROGRAMS

What is debugging?
• Programmers find errors ,rectify them and recompile the code until the code is error
free .this process is called debugging.
• An error causing disruption in program running or in programming output is program
bug.
• Debugging refers to process of locating the place of errors,cause of error and correcting
the code
Errors in the program
• An error is anything that prevents a program from compiling and running.
3 types of error:
• Compile time error
• Run-time error
• Logical error
Compile time errors
• Errors that occurs during compile time .
• When a program compiles its source code it is checked for whether it follows
programming language rules or not
• 2 types of compile time errors
• Syntax errors:
when rules of programming language is violated
X<-y*z x=y*z
If(x=(x*y)) if(x==(x*y)):
• Semantic errors:
when statements are not meaningful
X*Y=Z
Run-time errors
• Errors that occurs during execution of the program. These are hard to detect.
• Some run time errors stops the execution of the program .this program is called crashed
or terminated abnormally
• Eg:infinite loop,or wrong value input(data type different)
Logical errors
• Program does not provide correct result. This is because logic of the program may
not be correct.
• Eg:incorrectly implemented algorithm
Exceptions vs errors
• Error is a bug in the code that causes irregular output or stops program from executing.
• Exception is an irregular situation occurring during program execution on which
programmer has no control. This program is syntactically and logically correct
example: Divide by zero; try to open a file not exist.
When an exception occurs it should be handled by exception handling mechanism, in the
program
• Example ATM:
Entering wrong pin number-error
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Not much amount in account-exception
Exception handling in python
try:
#write a code that may generate exception
except:
#write a code how to handle the exception
Example:
try:
print(“result of 10/5’”,10/5)
print(“result of 10/0=“10/0)
except:
print(“divide by zero exception”)
types of exceptions
• EOFerror
• I0Error
• NameError
• ValueError
• TypeError
• KeyError
• ZeroDivisionError
• ImportError
• IndexError
• OverflowError
Testing:
It is the process of verifying the output of the program with sample datas.
How to debug a program?
• Carefully spot the origin of the error
• Print variable’s intermediate values
• Code tracing and stepping
Carefully spot the origin of the error
• Python interpreter will list the error if running program has error
• When python gives line number of an error:
• the error may be in this line number or the lines before the line number
1. a=int(input("enter a number"))
2. j="a"
3. for i in range(4):
4. print(j**i)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:/Users/nadheen/Desktop/[Link]", line 4, in <module>
print(j**i)
Print variables intermediate values
• Depending upon algorithm the variable’s value changes .
• Sometime we get incorrect output but we can’t find it.

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 • In this case add many print statement (temporarily)to inspect values of variables after
each step.
Code tracing
• Code tracing means execute the code one line at a time and watching its impact on
variables
Using debugger tool
• Is a specialized computer program/software that can be used to test and debug programs
written in a specific programming language.
• A debugger can be a separate program or integrated with(IDE)
• Python provides a separate debugger program called pdb.
Break points
• Break points are temporary halt markers in a source code that stop the debugger at the
marked code line
• Once break point is set up ,debugger executes till the line with breakpoint and then halts
pdb-python debugger
• Add first line of code as
import pdb
• Add the following line just above the code line from where you want to start tracing of
code
pdb.set_trace()
• Once you have done this and run the program python debugger will run the code and
show the following prompt in console window
ipdb>
b 45 set breakpoint on line 45
b list current breakpoints
cl clear all breakpoints
FAQs

 What is debugging?
 What is testing ?
 Difference between error and exception
 What is an exception?how it is handled?
 What are the types of exceptions?
 Difference between run-time and compile time error.
 What is syntax and semantic errors?
 What are logical errors?
 How to debug a program?
 What is pdb?
 What is a breakpoint?
 What is code tracing?
 Explain different types of errors in python with examples.
 Write the differences between testing and debugging.
 What is the difference between syntax error and semantics error?

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