Conditional Compilation and Variables

Debugging code can be placed in a driver by conditionally compiling code based on a preprocessor symbol such as DEBUG or by using a global variable. Conditional compilation has the advantage that unnecessary code can be removed in the production driver. Using a variable allows the amount of debugging output to be chosen at runtime. This can be accomplished by setting a debugging level at runtime with an I/O control or through a debugger. Commonly, these two methods are combined.

The following example relies on the compiler to remove unreachable code (the code following the always-false test of zero), and also provides a local variable that can be set in /etc/system or patched by a debugger.

#ifdef DEBUG
comments on values of xxdebug and what they do
static int xxdebug;
#define dcmn_err if (xxdebug) cmn_err
#else
#define dcmn_err if (0) cmn_err
#endif
...
	dcmn_err(CE_NOTE, "Error!\n");

This method handles the fact that cmn_err(9F) has a variable number of arguments. Another method relies on the macro having one argument, a parenthesized argument list for cmn_err(9F), which the macro removes. It also removes the reliance on the optimizer by expanding the macro to nothing if DEBUG is not defined.

#ifdef DEBUG
comments on values of xxdebug and what they do
static int xxdebug;
#define dcmn_err(X) if (xxdebug) cmn_err X
#else
#define dcmn_err(X) /* nothing */
#endif
	...
/* Note:double parentheses are required when using dcmn_err. */
	dcmn_err((CE_NOTE, "Error!")); 

This can be extended in many ways, such as by having different messages from cmn_err(9F) depending on the value of xxdebug, but be careful not to obscure the code with too much debugging information.

Another common scheme is to write an xxlog()() function, which uses vsprintf(9F) or vcmn_err(9F) to handle variable argument lists.