A macro for printf-style debugging fans.

Debuggers are great. But sometimes you just don't have the time or patience to set up everything correctly and just want a quick way to inspect some values at runtime.

This projects provides a single header file with a dbg(…) macro that can be used in all circumstances where you would typically write printf("…", …) or std::cout << …. But it comes with a few extras.

#include <dbg.h>
#include <cstdint>
#include <vector>

// You can use "dbg(..)" in expressions:
int32_t factorial(int32_t n) {
  if (dbg(n <= 1)) {
    return dbg(1);
  } else {
    return dbg(n * factorial(n - 1));
  }
}

int32_t main() {
  std::string message = "hello";
  dbg(message);  // [example.cpp:15 (main)] message = "hello" (std::string)

  const int32_t a = 2;
  const int32_t b = dbg(3 * a) + 1;  // [example.cpp:18 (main)] 3 * a = 6 (int32_t)

  std::vector<int32_t> numbers{b, 13, 42};
  dbg(numbers);  // [example.cpp:21 (main)] numbers = {7, 13, 42} (std::vector<int32_t>)

  dbg("this line is executed");  // [example.cpp:23 (main)] this line is executed

  factorial(4);

  return 0;
}

The code above produces this output (try it yourself):

• Easy to read, colorized output (colors auto-disable when the output is not an interactive terminal)
• Prints file name, line number, function name and the original expression
• Adds type information for the printed-out value
• Specialized pretty-printers for containers, pointers, string literals, enums, std::optional, etc.
• Can be used inside expressions (passing through the original value)
• The dbg.h header issues a compiler warning when included (so you don't forget to remove it).
• Compatible and tested with C++11, C++14 and C++17.

To make this practical, the dbg.h header should be readily available from all kinds of different places and in all kinds of environments. The quick & dirty way is to actually copy the header file to /usr/local/include or to clone the repository and symlink dbg.h to /usr/local/include/dbg.h.

git clone https://github.com/sharkdp/dbg-macro
sudo ln -s $(readlink -f dbg-macro/dbg.h) /usr/local/include/dbg.h

If you don't want to make untracked changes to your filesystem, check below if there is a package for your operating system or package manager.

You can install dbg-macro from the AUR:

yay -S dbg-macro

You can install the dbg-macro port via:

vcpkg install dbg-macro

CMakeLists.txt

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.11) # FetchContent added in cmake 3.11
project(app) # name of executable

set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17)

# dbg-macro
include(FetchContent)

FetchContent_Declare(dbg_macro GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/sharkdp/dbg-macro)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(dbg_macro)

add_executable(${PROJECT_NAME} main.cpp) # your source files goes here
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} PRIVATE dbg_macro) # make dbg.h available

main.cpp

#include <dbg.h>

int main() {
  dbg(42, "hello world", false);
  return 0;
}

• Set the DBG_MACRO_DISABLE flag to disable the dbg(…) macro (i.e. to make it a no-op).
• Set the DBG_MACRO_NO_WARNING flag to disable the "'dbg.h' header is included in your code base" warnings.
• Set the DBG_MACRO_FORCE_COLOR flag to force colored output and skip tty checks.

You can pass multiple arguments to the dbg(…) macro. The output of dbg(x, y, z) is same as dbg(x); dbg(y); dbg(z);:

dbg(42, "hello world", false);

Note that you have to wrap "unprotected commas" in parentheses:

dbg("a vector:", (std::vector<int>{2, 3, 4}));

If you want to format integers in hexadecimal, octal or binary representation, you can simply wrap them in dbg::hex(…), dbg::oct(…) or dbg::bin(…):

const uint32_t secret = 12648430;
dbg(dbg::hex(secret));

dbg(…) already prints the type for each value in parenthesis (see screenshot above). But sometimes you just want to print a type (maybe because you don't have a value for that type). In this case, you can use the dbg::type<T>() helper to pretty-print a given type T. For example:

template <typename T>
void my_function_template() {
  using MyDependentType = typename std::remove_reference<T>::type&&;
  dbg(dbg::type<MyDependentType>());
}

To print a timestamp, you can use the dbg::time() helper:

dbg(dbg::time());

If you want dbg(…) to work for your custom datatype, you can simply overload operator<< for std::ostream&:

std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& out, const user_defined_type& v) {
  out << "…";
  return out;
}

If you want to modify the type name that is printed by dbg(…), you can add a custom get_type_name overload:

// Customization point for type information
namespace dbg {
    std::string get_type_name(type_tag<bool>) {
        return "truth value";
    }
}

If you want to contribute to dbg-macro, here is how you can build the tests and demos:

Make sure that the submodule(s) are up to date:

git submodule update --init

Then, use the typical cmake workflow. Usage of -DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD=17 is optional, but recommended in order to have the largest set of features enabled:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD=17
make

To run the tests, simply call:

make test

You can find the unit tests in tests/basic.cpp.

This project is inspired by Rusts dbg!(…) macro.