Create sequence diagram from debugger

Gustaf D · 29 Sept 2020, 08:48

During investigation of an interesting piece of code I would like to set a breakpoint just before and after that code. Then when the first breakpoint is triggered i would like to start recording the call stack until the second breakpoint is reached. This recorded callstack could then be used to generate call sequence diagrams.

Do you know if there is such a plugin to qtcreator? I think it would be very useful.

JonB · 30 Sept 2020, 06:39

@Gustaf-D
I doubt there is any such thing, but if there were it would be in the capabilities of the debugger you use (you don't say), not Qt Creator itself.

Gustaf D · J JonB 29 Sept 2020, 08:48

@JonB no i have trouble finding such a tool. But i am not the first one to think about it i see in the searches. Strange as it would be very useful investigating biff platforms.

Yes it should probably be supported in the debugger, so all transitions would be saved. To later be visualized in some nice tool.

There seem to be something in sparks.
https://sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/14.0/visual_execution_analysis/create_sequence_diagram_of_cal.html

It also seems prototyped in eclipse for Java.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.researchgate.net/figure/J-IVE-prototype-showing-object-and-sequence-diagrams-call-stack-source-code-and-query_fig2_221107985/amp

Anonymous_Banned275 · wrote on 30 Sept 2020, 15:21

This is an excellent idea / subject to ponder on.
The original JIVE presentation is dated 2007!
There MAY be others, similar tools since then...

I sure could use such tool tracking development of my current and only Qt project - bluetooth application.
I picked Qt for GUI and did not realize it is event driven (IDE) and it definitely applies well when "external" timing is involved.

I also have another bluetooth application - under construction - that one uses Eclipse. I may take a peek if JIVE was / is really available for Eclipse. ( Not that I need to start mixing QtCreator and Eclipse .)

Chris Kawa · wrote on 30 Sept 2020, 16:07

@Gustaf-D As far as I know there's no such thing for Qt Creator, but if your app can run on Windows you can use Visual Studio to attach a debugger and use the Diagnostic Tools.

They have function call graphs, CPU and memory profiling, hot path discovery and much much more. You can start/stop data collection on breakpoints like you asked.