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Dump Command

The Dump command is used to help debugging internal scripts but display information while process commands in the scripting window:

Dump #1,<#2>, ...

where #1, #2, etc. can be

• parsed: Display each command as parsed by the code
• evaluated: Display each command after evaluating command arguments
• off: Turn off output of debugging lines

If no arguments are provided, it is the same as providing both parsed and evaluated.

For example, consider the following script that has an error and use of a Dump command to find it:

Dump
doc.get recs,"individuals"
#name="Thornton, Sean"
recs.#name.get indi
write "name = "&@indi.name&return
write "born = "&@indi.borthDate&return

The output of running this script is

[PARSED COMMAND]: doc.get,recs,"individuals"
[EVALUATED COMMAND]: doc.get,recs,individuals
[PARSED COMMAND]: #name,=,"Thornton, Sean"
[EVALUATED COMMAND]: #name,=,Thornton, Sean
[PARSED COMMAND]: recs.#name.get,indi
[EVALUATED COMMAND]: recs.#name.get,indi
[PARSED COMMAND]: write,"name = "&@indi.name&return
[EVALUATED COMMAND]: write,name = Thornton, Sean

name = Thornton, Sean
[PARSED COMMAND]: write,"born = "&@indi.borthDate&return
[EVALUATED COMMAND]: write,born = Expression error

born = Expression error
class INDIRecord does not have requested attribute in line 6:
     write "born = "&@indi.borthDate&return

Each parsed command shows how the code split the line into a command and it arguments with each component separated by commas. The evaluated command shows how the code evaluated each argument (but not the command) as an expression. For example, the evaluation of the first command simply evaluated the string expression "individuals" that removes the quotes and returns the plain string. All commands go as expected until the write "born = "&@indi.borthDate&return command. It is parsed correctly, but the evaluation step reveals an expression error. The problem is that the code used borthDate instead of the correct property birthDate.

Errors like the anove example are automatically caught by internal scripting. The Dump command is actually most useful when a script does not have errors but is getting the wrong answer. You can use blocks surrounded by Dump and Dump "off" to see if commands within those blocks are proceding as expected.