C++Talk.NET C++ language newsgroups   Archives   FAQ   Search   Memberlist   Usergroups   Register   Profile   Log in to check your private messages   Log in  what's the best way to handle the verbose mode of an applica          C++Talk.NET Forum Index -> C++ language (comp.lang.c++) View previous topic :: View next topic   Author Message mast2as@yahoo.com Guest Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:10 am    Post subject: what's the best way to handle the verbose mode of an applica In the same vein as the topic that I started on exception handling .... If I have read (not all of them though) the documents that you guys pointed me to, the try/throw/catch mechanism should really be kept for exception handling (basically errors whevere they are critical or not). Now, while I am developing this application, so far I used std::cout quite a lot to check that the code was doing the right thing (writing out to the console the content of some variables, etc). Now that the program becomes more complex and that I need to develop some over parts of the application, I would like to start removing those lines. Of course at the same time i am thinking that I may need them back again one day so commenting them out or deleting them doesn't seem to be the best option, ... so my question is... What would the best way to implement some sort of verbose system in a program where for example the user can specify how 'chatty' he/she wants the output to be (myapp -verbose 1). So far what I have been using is the very basic thing like #define VERBOSE 1 #ifdef VERBOSE std::cout << "write something out to the console" << std::endl; #endif but i know from you guys know that macro are evil , plus this mechanism doesn't handle the level of verbosity that a user might want to set (0 silent, 1 basic info, 2 every possible message). Should I just write a simple inline function like printOutInfo and use it whenever I have something to print out to the console, something like... (code not tested) enum VerboseLevel { kSilent = 0, kPrintImportantStuff, kPrintEverything }; void printOutInfo( const char* msg, VerboseLevel msgVerboseLevel, VerboseLevel userVerboseLevel { if ( userVerboseLevel != kSilent && userVerboseLevel >= msgVerboseLevel ) { std::cout << msg << std::endl; } } int main( int argc, char *argv[] ) { VerboseLevel userVerboseLevel = (VerboseLevel) atoi( argv[ 1 ] ); printOutInfo( "some very important message", kPrintImportantStuff, userVerboseLevel ); return 0; } Or is there a good way to do that, that someone described already somewhere ;-) Many thanks, Mark - Back to top Ian Collins Guest Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:10 am    Post subject: Re: what's the best way to handle the verbose mode of an app mast2as (AT) yahoo (DOT) com wrote: Quote: In the same vein as the topic that I started on exception handling ... If I have read (not all of them though) the documents that you guys pointed me to, the try/throw/catch mechanism should really be kept for exception handling (basically errors whevere they are critical or not). Now, while I am developing this application, so far I used std::cout quite a lot to check that the code was doing the right thing (writing out to the console the content of some variables, etc). Now that the program becomes more complex and that I need to develop some over parts of the application, I would like to start removing those lines. Of course at the same time i am thinking that I may need them back again one day so commenting them out or deleting them doesn't seem to be the best option, ... so my question is... What would the best way to implement some sort of verbose system in a program where for example the user can specify how 'chatty' he/she wants the output to be (myapp -verbose 1). Save your self a lot of unnecessary grief and learn Test Driven Development. With proper robust unit tests, incremental development makes this stuff redundant. -- Ian Collins. Back to top mast2as@yahoo.com Guest Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:10 am    Post subject: Re: what's the best way to handle the verbose mode of an app Quote: Save your self a lot of unnecessary grief and learn Test Driven Development. With proper robust unit tests, incremental development makes this stuff redundant. Hum sounds like another thing I need to learn ;-) That's fine for debugging my application I guess (so I am going to read about Test Driven Development) but let's say i also need to output some data for the user if he/she wants it (progress report, some average value about processing times, created files, etc...) Back to top Ian Collins Guest Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:10 am    Post subject: Re: what's the best way to handle the verbose mode of an app mast2as (AT) yahoo (DOT) com wrote: Quote: Save your self a lot of unnecessary grief and learn Test Driven Development. With proper robust unit tests, incremental development makes this stuff redundant. Hum sounds like another thing I need to learn ;-) That's fine for debugging my application I guess (so I am going to read about Test Driven Development) but let's say i also need to output some data for the user if he/she wants it (progress report, some average value about processing times, created files, etc...) Than that becomes a user story and you do it in the normal way. What the user wants should not be confused with what the developer wants. -- Ian Collins. 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