ABSTRACT
In this chapter we provide some guidance on tools and strategies that should make debugging your code easier and faster. Basically, you must first try to identify the source of the error. While it is generally easy to find where the program actually failed, that is not usually the place where the programming error occurred. Some bugs are reproducible; that is, they occur every time a sequence of commands is executed on all platforms, and others can be more elusive; they arise intermittently and perhaps only under some operating systems. One of the first things that you should do when faced with a likely bug is to try and ensure its reproducibility. If it is not easily reproduced, then your first steps should be to find situations where it is, as only then is there much hope of finding the problem.
