tracing messages

[Simon Marlow]

On 28/01/2010 14:27, Serge D. Mechveliani wrote:
> Dear GHC team,
>
> this is on  tracing in  ghc-6.12.1
> (made from source on Debian Linux i-386-like machine).
>
> I wonder what is the reason for this tracing message
> (starting with  `Step1 ...' ):
>
> ----------------------------
> ...
> equations calc =
> [j<  i ->  true,
> m<= p ->  true,
> p<= q ->  true,
> q<= n ->  true,
> (A p)<= (A q) ->  false,
> (X<= Y) | (Y<  X) ->  true,
> | {not (Y<= n), not (m<= X), not (X<  i), not (j<  Y), (A X)<= (A Y)} ->
> true,
> | {not (X<= Y), not (Y<= j), not (m<= X), (A X)<= (A Y)} ->  true,
> | {not (XStep 1.  Starting mutual pre-reduction. The number of rules is  25.
> Pre-reduction done. Initial numbers of equations is  9,
> after reduction:  9,  the pre-reduction cost is 484.
> ...
> ...
> ----------------------------
>
> The  main  program does the following in succession:
> 1) finds  eqs,
> 2) prints
>     "equations calc =\n",      shows eqs "\n\n",
>     "Starting completion.\n",
>     "remaining goals = ",
> 3) finds  res  by completion (`complete'),
> 4) prints
>            shows (completionGoalRem res) "\n"
>
> The  trace  calls are set only in the function `complete'.
> The above message
>    Step 1.  Starting mutual pre-reduction. The number of rules is  25.
>    Pre-reduction done. Initial numbers of equations is  9,
>
> occurs the first message of this tracing.
> But the main program must have printed the full last equation in
> eqs,  and only after this any tracing message could appear.
> Instead, it breaks the last equation printing with the tracing messages.
> The further evaluation is long, so I interrupted it, without seeing the
> final result. But this printing break looks strange, because  eqs
> does not depend on the results of `complete', the reverse holds: the
> latter applies to  eqs.
> Generally, I often observe an effect of this kind; it is harmless, but
> I wonder, what might be the reason.

Perhaps your program output is going to stdout, and the trace messages 
are going to stderr?  Buffering would make them appear out of order.

If you're using Debug.trace, I wouldn't recommend that for production 
use, only debugging.

Cheers,
	Simon