Hi All,
Does anyone have experience debugging in the OpenFOAM environment? I need to get down to solver level, to understand the framework as well as to maybe write my own kind of solver. Any tips on what tools to use etc.

Thanks in advance,
Susan.

[gschaider]

Last time I looked, debugging C++-code that relied on a lot of templates with a source debugger like gdb was a rather painful experience (but thats some time ago, maybe things have gotten better). Foam relies on templates, so I never bothered to even try.

If you want to understand the structure of OF I wouldn't suggest a debugger, because you'll only get "an ants view" not "the big picture".

I'd suggest you get acquainted with the chapters 4 and 6 of the User Guide, the Programmers Guide, possibly http://www.mfix.org/mwiki/index.php/...d_Capabilities. Then single out an application that is similar to what you'll want to do and with all the stuff mentioned above in the left hand and the right hand on the sources and the Doxygen try to find out how what is done in there.

(if somebody knows an easier way, please let me know, I'm still struggeling)

[grtabor]

The doxygen-generated documentation is quite valuable for certain classes; not, unfortunately the templated ones, but you can get something of a feeling of the interrelation between the others by browsing through it. It could probably be improved further by sensible addition of comments to the source code; but that would require a major investment of time and effort by somebody (probably Henry + co) which is not likely to happen.

Gavin