Beginning C++ Programming

Producing diagnostic messages

The effective use of diagnostic messages is a broad topic, so this section will just give you the basics. When you design your code, you should make it easy to write diagnostic messages, for example, providing mechanisms to dump the contents of an object and providing access to the code that tests for class invariants and pre- and post-conditions. You should also analyze the code to make sure that appropriate messages are logged. For example, issuing a diagnostic message in a loop will often fill up your log files, making it difficult to read the other messages in the log file. However, the fact that something is consistently failing in a loop may in itself be an important diagnostic, as may be the number of ...