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The 'Empty Files Creation' Debugging Method

By Will Bontrager

Here is a debugging method I sometimes use when I just can't otherwise find out where a problem is.

I put lines that create empty files with unique file names into various places in the code, to narrow down the problem area.

A file creation line would be something like this:

open Wtemp,'>1';close Wtemp;

Then, in another point, I put

open Wtemp,'>2';close Wtemp;

And so forth, an incremented number as the file name interspersed throughout the code.

Because a new file is created at each debugging point, buffering problems are eliminated.

When I run the script, I know how far execution went by which files were created. I can then usually narrow it down to a small section.

If I still can't find the exact problem, the smaller section gets the treatment, between every line of code if necessary.

August 8, 2005

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