Print statement debugging, eat my dust!

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Note: I program primarly in Prolog so this example was created for Prolog but useful for most programming languages.

Most programmers are familiar with the practice of debugging by inserting print statements, e.g. format/2 predicate in Prolog, to display variable values or indicate the execution of a code section. However, once the debugging is done, these print statements need to be manually removed. A more effective approach is to convert these statements into a more flexible and useful form, such as disabling them in an optimized build, outputting them only under certain conditions, or logging them to a file.

ChatGPT can convert Prolog code that uses format/2 predicates to utilize SWI-Prolog’s debug/3 predicates.

Prompt

Convert format/2 predicates below to debug/3 predicate, for the debug/3 topic arguement use http(open)

open_socket(Address, StreamPair, Options) :-
    format('http_open: Connecting to ~p ...', [Address]),
    tcp_connect(Address, StreamPair, Options),
    stream_pair(StreamPair, In, Out),
    format('\tok ~p ---> ~p', [In, Out]),
    set_stream(In, record_position(false)),
    (   option(timeout(Timeout), Options)
    ->  set_stream(In, timeout(Timeout))
    ;   true
    ).

ChatGPT Completion

Here’s the converted code with the debug/3 predicate:

open_socket(Address, StreamPair, Options) :-
    debug(http(open), 'Connecting to ~p ...', [Address]),
    tcp_connect(Address, StreamPair, Options),
    stream_pair(StreamPair, In, Out),
    debug(http(open), 'ok ~p ---> ~p', [In, Out]),
    set_stream(In, record_position(false)),
    (   option(timeout(Timeout), Options)
    ->  set_stream(In, timeout(Timeout))
    ;   true
    ).

In this code, the debug/3 predicate is used instead of the format/2 predicate. The first argument of debug/3 is the topic, which is set to http(open) in this case. The second argument is the message to be printed, which is the same as the string used in the format/2 predicate. The third argument is the list of values to be inserted into the message string, which is also the same as the list used in the format/2 predicate.