Formula debugger… More addictive than heroin

Hum, probably not the best title in the world. But that’s the truth: for any Murex support person, the formula debugger has become very hard to live without.

What is Formula debugger?

I’ll have to assume that you are from another planet . The formula debugger is THE tool to use whether you are actually working (so useful) or just pretending (looks very serious and on the scale of Lazy Fridays Hangover I am Coming to Work but I am Still Asleep (LFHICWISA), it scores a 9 (only beaten by the Excel screensaver)).

As the formula debugger name could have led you to believe: It is used to debug formula. When you turn it on, whenever you are using functions which calls the pretrade, you will see a pop up with all the formulas executed as well as their resolution.

How does it work?

To turn it on, it is very simple, from your enduser session, do Help-Monitor-Formula debugger. You will get a pop-up stating: Formula debugging is now on.  (do the same steps to turn it off)

Now, very simply price a trade from ePad, or whatever you want to do, and a pop up will come up showing you the different formulas executed.

Even better (it’s like a double rainbow) if shows you the resolution of formulas. For example (first line is my formula, second one is the resolution details always starting with //)

IF fLFHICWISA>9. THEN sResults:=’Better than Excel Screensaver’

// IF 8.5>9. statement result is FALSE

You also get the content of the variables when they are assigned:

sBonanza:=legGetString(pLeg,”Counterpart”)

// legGetString(pointer,”Counterpart”) returned “HSBC”

And of course you also get the name of the formula being executed so you can check the formula you have been working on is properly being used by the pricing.

And the whole text is exportable to Notepad or you can also search through it.

Any more tips?

You are getting quite demanding, but I actually have 2 more things:

One is the obvious Clear button, to make sure that you only have as debugging output what you need to focus on (between 2 tests, just clear the window)

And the other one is to couple with the action button wf:XML refresh in the strategies/notpads (right click on the folder,Properties, Actions. Then you can add a button wf:XML refresh. Usually it is the last one in the list.

This button lets you reload all the changes you made in the formulas in a CONFIG session without having to exit eTradepad and re-enter.

Time for you to get cracking on new strategies and formulas!

One thought on “Formula debugger… More addictive than heroin”

  1. One tip to share (in recent version):
    In formula debugger output, if a field is changed by the formula, the value change can be traced with sign “->” in the format old value -> new value

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