How to best add logging/debugging code?

[Malcolm Wallace]

Ross Paterson <ross at soi.city.ac.uk> writes:

> On Thu, Nov 27, 2003 at 02:19:53PM +0000, Malcolm Wallace wrote:
> > 
> > Consider an expression where the printable argument to 'trace' causes
> > the evaluation of another expression which itself is defined using
> > 'trace'.  The nested 'trace' outputs will appear interspersed with
> > each other.  In recursive definitions this can become quite painful
> > to disentangle.
> 
> Perhaps trace should be redefined:
> 
> trace msg v = foldr seq (old_trace msg v) msg

Hmm.  This suggestion has the potential to confuse the casual user
even more.  Consider

    debug s x = trace (s++": "++show x++"\n") x
    f x = debug ("entered f") (... g y ...)
    g y = debug ("entered g") (...)
    main =  ... f ...

With the current definition of 'trace', although the formatting is
ugly, the user (correctly) sees that the evaluation of f is entered
before g.

    entered f: entered g: val_g_y
    val_f_x

With your suggestion, it would appear that g was entered before f.

    entered g: val_g_y
    entered f: val_f_x

As I recall, hbc had a partial solution to the interspersal problem by
annotating every 'trace' output with a nesting level, e.g.

    trace(0): entered f:
    trace(1): entered g: val_g_y
    trace(0): val_f_x

However, none of these behaviours is ultimately satisfactory.
Regards,
    Malcolm