Fx Fortran Debugger for Macintosh OSX and Linux - Overview

The Fx Fortran debugger is a source level debugger built specifically for Fortran but also supports multiple languages including Absoft F77, F90/95, IBM XL Fortran, Apple C, gcc (with restrictions) and assembler. The Fx Fortran Debugger is fully featured to meet the needs of both novice and experienced programmers. Fx allows you to quickly identify problem areas and more efficiently develop working programs. Fx offers the advantages of a graphical interface and windowing capabilities yet also offers the convenience of a command line interface.

Absoft is working with IBM to add support for debugging Fortran 90/95 constructs such as ALLOCATABLE ARRAYS and POINTERS when using Fx with XL Fortran. This will be made available to registered XL Fortran users who purchase from Absoft via a service pack at no charge. These features are already available when Fx is used with Absoft's Pro Fortran compiler for OSX.

The Fx Fortran Debugger allows programmers to:

• Quickly identify problem areas in programs
• More easily detect, diagnose and repair bugs
• Verify logic without time-consuming output constructions
• Dynamically stop and restart programs and interactively change values
• Debug Fortran, C, and assembler code all from the same tool

• Best debugging tool available for Fortran; supports C & assembler, features:
  - Intuitive graphical interface
  - Adjustable arrays
  - Complex variables
  - Command logging and playback
  - Software watch-points, hardware breakpoints, etc.
  - Support for DWARF, stabs, xstabs
  
• Supports AMD/IA32/Linux, PowerPC/Linux, Macintosh OSX
• Compatible with other compilers from Absoft, IBM, gnu
• Redirect I/O to/from a file
• Reload externally modified files
• Edit open files in the debugger
• Display variables and values by double clicking
• Global (default) properties for F77, F90/95, C and plain text files
• Perform proper array indexing for Fortran and C
• Handle Fortran and C quoted strings
• And much more

Absoft's Fx Fortran Debugger was originally designed to support Fortran. As a result, the Fx Fortran Debugger handles constructs that are not supported by C-based debuggers (such as gdb). IBM includes gdb as the standard debugger for XL Fortran for OSX. Apple's XCode debugger is also a version of gdb. The chart below compares the support for Fortran between Fx and gdb:

Fx versus gdb Fortran support comparison	Fx	gdb
Graphical interface	Y	N
Command line interface	Y	Y
Display Integer Variables	Y	Y
Display Logical Variables	Y	Y
Display Real Variables	Y	Y
Display Complex Variables	Y	Y
Display Character Variables	Y	N
Display Arrays	Y	Y
Display Adjustable Arrays	Y	N
Display STRUCTURES	Y	N
Display Adjustable Strings	Y	N
Display Character Substrings	Y	N
Full support for Fortran 90 constructs	Y	N
Full support for Fortran 95 constructs	Y	N

Source code, program location and command output are displayed in a compact fashion, maximizing the limited screen space on smaller displays. Command buttons are user customizable and additional windows displaying other program information can be opened and closed as needed.