Source level debugging on Arduino?

Question

I've got an Arduino Duemilanove and am programming it in C with AVR Studio. Is there any way to get a source level debugger to work with this setup?

While you may have valid reasons for wanting source level debug, I would recommend not to become reliant on it. Most microcontrollers do not support interactive debugging and relying on it may restrict your choices in future. JTAG debugging is slow, so will usually interfere with real-time tasks. Where possible, use LEDs and UARTs for debug. Write portable code so that the bulk of the logic can be debugged on a PC.
That is good advice Joby. I tend to treat source level debug as a nice to have, not an essential. I develop already like you say, keep it portable, debug most of the PC. Sometimes it's good to be able to just set a breakpoint and examine and change the variables there without having to add debug prints, recompile, redownload etc.
I hope this isn't off topic but AVR Studio is Visual Studio. The Arduino Plugin for Visual Studio Pro has a unique Arduino Debugger. It's free at the moment and doesn't require any additional hardware to work so it's easy to try it out.

Toby Jaffey · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-16 19:24:17Z

up vote 1 down vote accepted

Yes, some AVRs provide JTAG which can be used with AVR-GDB to do source level debug.

answered Oct 16 '11 at 19:24

Toby Jaffey
19.9k34799

	Thanks, so you definitely need an AVR chip with a JTAG interface to get src level debug? – fred basset Oct 16 '11 at 19:29
	I believe so, yes. – Toby Jaffey Oct 16 '11 at 19:38
	Do you know if any of the standard Ardunio boards have a JTAG port? – fred basset Oct 16 '11 at 19:40
	The microcontroller on the arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardMega claims to support JTAG – Toby Jaffey Oct 16 '11 at 20:04

1 Answer