Camel Doctor

Camel Doctor is a C++ Qt 5 desktop Linux application providing HTML user interface for the Perl debugger.
It combines debugger output with syntax highlighted source code.

Camel Doctor implements an idea proposed by Valcho Nedelchev and provoked by the scarcity of graphical front ends for the Perl debugger.

Syntax highlighting is achieved using Syntax::Highlight::Engine::Kate CPAN module by Hans Jeuken and Gábor Szabó.

Contents

• Compile-time Requirements
• Runtime Requirements
• Command-Line Usage
• GUI Usage
• Resources Directory
• Developer Notes
• History
• License
• Authors

Compile-time Requirements

• GCC compiler

• Qt 5 QtWebEngine headers and libraries.

Runtime Requirements

• Qt 5 QtWebEngine

• Perl 5 distribution - Camel Doctor uses the first Perl interpreter on PATH.

Compiled and tested successfully using Qt 5.8.0 and Qt 5.15.3

Command-Line Usage

cameldoc script-pathname argument-1 argument-2

When started from the command line, Camel Doctor takes all command-line arguments after the script pathname and passes them to the Perl debugger. All environment variables from the command-line shell are also inherited by the Perl debugger.

If a relative script pathname is supplied, it is converted to an absolute pathname using the working directory of Camel Doctor. If the supplied script does not exist, an error message is displayed.

When Camel Doctor is started from terminal, it starts another detached copy of itself and closes the first one. This is necessary to capture the output from the Perl debugger.

GUI Usage

When Camel Doctor is started by double-clicking the binary, a file selection dialog is displayed, but no command-line arguments can be supplied.

Resources Directory

{camel_doctor_application_directory}/resources is the home of all Camel Doctor support files, including the Syntax::Highlight::Engine::Kate module. This directory and all its files must not be removed or renamed for the proper operation of Camel Doctor.

Developer Notes

Camel Doctor handles Perl debugger output using the dbgformatter.pl script located in the resources directory. If the dbgformatter.pl script does not exist, an error message is displayed.

dbgformatter.pl can be modified without recompilation of the Camel Doctor binary provided that the following conditions are met:

1. The file name is not changed.

2. Perl debugger output is read from query string.

3. Commands are supplied to the Perl debugger using the following special URLs:

• Select file to debug: http://local-pseudodomain/perl-debugger?select-file
• Send debugger command: http://local-pseudodomain/perl-debugger?command=M

The working directory of dbgformatter.pl is the resources directory.

History

Camel Doctor was started as a part of the Perl Executing Browser in 2014.

License

This program is free software;
you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License,
as published by the Free Software Foundation;
either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY;
without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Authors

Dimitar D. Mitov, 2014 - 2017, 2024
Valcho Nedelchev, 2014 - 2017