Saving state while debugging (feture request?)

[paraj]

When debugging/exploring it would often be useful to me if it was possible to save and restore the (halted) state of WinUAE for later. Maybe this is already possible and I just don't know about it.

Example: I'm looking at some game and have followed the bootloader to where it gets interesting. Now I'd like to save the state at that instant so I can backtrack after e.g. wrongly doing "z" instead of "t" (or the other way round if I found that I've stepped into some boring routine).

If not already implemented, I'm very open to something that only works in special cases and requires weird debug comand incarnations.

[Toni Wilen]

It is not possible. state can be only saved when hpos==vpos==0. Most DMA channels are idle at this point which makes it much easier to handle than any random position.

[paraj]

I see, guess that makes sense (certainly makes it simpler).

Perhaps a way to enter the GUI ASAP (xg?) would still help me in a lot of cases. Would limit how far back in time interesting stuff would be, and I could patch in a busy loop for the case I mentioned or something.

Anyway, low priority stuff, and if it's not useful to anyone else then don't obviously bother

[Rock'n Roll]

Originally Posted by paraj

When debugging/exploring it would often be useful to me if it was possible to save and restore the (halted) state of WinUAE for later.

I also see this as very useful and I think of a kind of 'debug-script' in which a command sequence of
WinUAE debugger commands are executed 'automatically' depending on the program to be debugged.
That way, I wouldn't have to keep repeating inputs for larger tests.

>LS 'name' ; (load script)

Contents command sequence:
example:reset;f 30008;L patch 1 $3001a !8;L Patch 2 $3017c !44;fd;g;f 3190a;

procedure:
Shift+F12 to open the Debugger
>LS 'debug_script' ; Load debug-script

-it executes the reset command first and
-it loads the program from disk and stops at address $30008
-it loads two program patches
-and deletes the breakpoint
-then it continues the program
-and breaks at address $3190a

the analysis can now be continued 'manually'.

The same should be also possible from a savestate.
example: reset 'savestate=superdemo.uss',f 30008;L patch 1 $3001a !8;L Patch 2 $3017c !44;fd;g;f 3190a;

Interrupt the script with Shift+F12 or end with completion message:
>debug-script break
>debug-script complete