Debugging in Hex

Some time ago a customer asked if we can display numbers in hexadecimal format. It was a question related to the simulation panel in particular. Of course we can't do this. The UI is build on decimal numbers. Nobody has thought about hexadecimals. But the customer had a point. When working with bit masks it is much easier to monitor them in hex. Leaving aside the technical details, to me the question is what hex representation to use? 0xFF (C++), 16#FF (SCL) , &HFF (VB), other? In Process Simulate there is no standard for displaying neither hex, oct or binary literals. Why? This is due to the lack of grammar that is considered native.

In the case of SCL however we do have a grammar. The one of the language itself. In the context of the script it is easy to use hex numbers since you know the syntax. It would be very straight forward for the SCL debugger to present the integers in its native syntax, isn't it?. Absolutely!

And here we are adding support for hex numbers in the debugger. By default all numbers are formatted as decimals but there is an option in the Debug menu to switch between decimal and hexadecimal format. It affects the variables window, the watch window, the commands window and the data tips that you see in the code:

Now we have a way to display hex numbers!

Try it in the 2509 release!