i use eclipse to work with java code.... it has a debugging feature that allows me to click on an icon that tells the compiler to read a line of code and it shows me the result on a seperate window. example: if i have a stack, and i want to populate the stack, then when i launch the debugger, it reads the code line by line, sooooo it creates my stack, and it shows it to me, then when i put something on the stack it shows me that too, so it will keep showing me things it does, when it reads a line of code.... and if the result on the other winows is not what should happen, then i know what line made it do that (the thing it was not suppose to do)..

hope this helps.....
ra2833

Debugging sounds like a valuable tool that I've been missing out on. Thanks much for the info, it was quite helpful. I'll make sure to give that a shot on my next lab.

>I've been programming for sometime now and one thing I've never had to do is any sort of "debugging".
You're incredibly lucky then to have never made any kind of mistake in your programs. Debugging is the process of removing an error whether it be compile-time, run-time, link-time, or a problem with the program's logic.

Well, after writing a program I've always had some options: compile, run, debug, etc. Now granted, if syntax is off or something of that sort, then my programming environment pops up errors stating that it's "expecting a ; on line 17" or something to that effect. But I have never understood what the "debug button" did (for lack of a better term).