Tracing unfamiliar source code, debugging, and most importantly, understanding the big picture design of the programs are all among Perspective Trace’s use cases. Discover tables you never knew were involved in the program flow and become an expert in your team. Imagine not only having a clue, such as an error code or an incorrect value, but also being able to find in an instant, where it is produced or calculated. Imagine being able to look around to understand the logic behind the problem.
Furthermore, during training and on-boarding sessions, you can visually explain the program logic to junior consultants. Remove the mystery behind the logic of programs they will be using and configuring every day. Memorable shapes and colors will certainly stick in their minds.
We record all visited programs’ source code and values, visited statements, and variables. This guarantees that all the data are there for a comfortable analysis. You can always return to a place where you left off or did not consider significant enough before. This approach enables up-stream debugging where you start with a mysterious value and proceed backward in the execution flow, right to the origin of the problem.
Our powerful search is one of the best features of Perspective Trace. It can take you directly to a place where the searched value is being calculated, even if you have no idea where you would put a watchpoint or a breakpoint. The trace is highly structured into what we call a super-stack tree, where various queries can be executed. Often, a forgotten switch statement is far more important to the general program logic than changes in the call stack would reveal.
This is yet another core feature. Being able to see the big picture of program flow is comparable to having a map in an unfamiliar city. On top of that, the human brain is a pattern recognition machine, hardwired to detect even the smallest nuances. As a consequence, you will certainly notice small discrepancies or deviations even when looking at thousands of executed statements from far away. The perspective transformation will do its job, and even one red pixel in the sea of white will stand out.
Variables are colored according to their contents. At a glance, you will be able to tell a negative value from zero or a large positive value. Dates and strings are colored in their own special way as well. We even trace and color variables twice – before and after the execution of a statement.