2.5. Controlling the debugging output

It is possible to turn on and off debugging output from within the debugger using the set command. Please see the WineDbg Command Reference section (Section 1.7.10) for how to do this.

You can do the same using the task manager (taskmgr) and selecting your application in the application list. Right clicking on the application, and selecting the debug option in the popup menu, will let you select the modifications you want on the debug channels.

Another way to conditionally log debug output (e.g. in case of very large installers which may create gigabytes of log output) is to create a pipe:

	$ mknod /tmp/debug_pipe p
	

and then to run wine like that:

	$ WINEDEBUG=+relay,+snoop wine setup.exe &>/tmp/debug_pipe
	

Since the pipe is initially blocking (and thus wine as a whole), you have to activate it by doing:

	$ cat /tmp/debug_pipe
	

(press Ctrl-C to stop pasting the pipe content)

Once you are about to approach the problematic part of the program, you just do:

	$ cat /tmp/debug_pipe >/tmp/wine.log
	

to capture specifically the part that interests you from the pipe without wasting excessive amounts of HDD space and slowing down installation considerably.

The WINEDEBUG environment variable controls the output of the debug messages. It has the following syntax: WINEDEBUG= [yyy]#xxx[,[yyy1]#xxx1]*

• where # is either + or -

• when the optional class argument (yyy) is not present, then the statement will enable(+)/disable(-) all messages for the given channel (xxx) on all classes. For example:

  WINEDEBUG=+reg,-file
              

  enables all messages on the reg channel and disables all messages on the file channel.

• when the optional class argument (yyy) is present, then the statement will enable (+)/disable(-) messages for the given channel (xxx) only on the given class. For example:

  WINEDEBUG=trace+reg,warn-file
              

  enables trace messages on the reg channel and disables warning messages on the file channel.

• also, the pseudo-channel all is also supported and it has the intuitive semantics:

      WINEDEBUG=+all      -- enables all debug messages
      WINEDEBUG=-all      -- disables all debug messages
      WINEDEBUG=yyy+all   -- enables debug messages for class yyy on all
                             channels.
      WINEDEBUG=yyy-all   -- disables debug messages for class yyy on all
                             channels.
              

  So, for example:

      WINEDEBUG=warn-all  -- disables all warning messages.
              

Also, note that at the moment:

• the FIXME and ERR classes are enabled by default

• the TRACE and WARN classes are disabled by default