Output Inspector

Output Inspector makes errors clickable so you can get to the issue in your software's source code instantly. Get the popular feature included in many IDEs independently of an IDE. Output Inspector will even look for TODOs in comments for various source code files cited by the log! Output Inspector parses your parser output.

On Linux, you can examine output in near-realtime (or non-realtime on Windows) using pipes instead of a log file. You can use the included "passthrough-outputinspector" script to automatically run outputinspector in Geany when you press the execute button. You can even use the included ogrep instead of grep then double click on a result to go to the line in the matching file! One of many possibilities is redirecting the output of many style checker commands to one file, then seeing the code for your entire project just like in a popular IDE. This becomes possible for any scenario now, so you do not have to work with an IDE you don't like for some language you are using if all you want is fast code navigation during debugging.

Primary Features

• Double-click an error to go to where the error occurs in your code.
• Color code lines in your output (red: error; orange: warning; yellow: issue in installed library used [if in site-packages]; black: formatting marks; gray: unrecognized information)
  • Detect flags in your output (such as Warning or Error).
• Detect flags in files cited by your output: TODO or FIXME (in inline comments). Predicing inline comment marks is possible when the file uses one of the following extensions: py, pyw, sh, c, h, cpp, hpp, js, java, php, bat, command.
• Install passthrough-outputinspector for use in IDEs (see Usage).

How to Use

Before first use, make sure kate or geany package is installed (run install script again if wasn't when install script ran--it recreates the config based on detecting kate's location if you enter y for yes).

Planned features

Piping

Pipe output from another program to get near-realtime (depending on your OS's implementation of piping) results without using files.

To get error output, run: ... 2>&1 >/dev/null | outputinspector; otherwise, simply run: ... | outputinspector (where "..." is your program).

GUI-based use

For automatic usage on Linux, create a build command in Geany:

• Place passthrough-outputinspector in ~/.local/bin
• In a terminal, run echo "PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.local/bin" >> ~/.bashrc
• "Build," "Set Build Commands"
• Set Execute (or an empty box under "Independent commands") to:
  passthrough-outputinspector python3 "%f"
  (if you set the Execute command, the gear button will run passthrough-outputinspector and then the button will turn into a stop button and be able to stop both passthrough-outputinspector and outputinspector)
  • You can send up to 7 additional params as passthrough-outputinspector checks for that many. Example:
    passthrough-outputinspector python3 "%f" --ExitOnNoErrors=no

Specific Uses

C++

Backtracing

(Parsing output such as in tests/data/gdb-backtrace.txt using the Python version of outputinspector is not available at least until the python branch becomes the default branch)

1. Compile your program with the option to add debugging symbols.
2. In a Terminal, set MY_EXE to the path to your debug executable.
3. In the same terminal run the following:

gdb "$MY_EXE" --eval-command=run --eval-command=bt --batch  >& err.txt
outputinspector &

Python linting

For py file linting: you can use pycodestyle (tested with pycodestyle-3 command--package may be named python3-pycodestyle in your Linux distro):

pycodestyle-3 > err.txt
outputinspector &

C#

For cs files, you have to run outputinspector from the location of the cs files you are compiling, and your compiler error output has to be redirected to err.txt.
Example:

mcs AssemblyInfo.cs MainForm.cs 2>err.txt
outputinspector &

(a space then & sign after outputinspector makes it not prevent continued use of console, however this is not recommended or else you may forget its open and if these instructions have been followed, and your compiler errors are in err.txt in the same folder, specified with lines starting with:

Filename.ext(row,col): error

Then Output Inspector should work when you double-click on the error.

Python Nose Tests

nosetests 1>out.txt 2>err.txt
outputinspector &

"JavaScript" (Node.js or ECMAScript) linting using jshint

The jshint package helps check js files by providing the jshint command. If you need to check an entire project at once, append them all to the same file. You can automatically use err.txt, or specify a file:

echo "" > err.txt # erase it first
jshint app.js >> err.txt
jshint config.js >> err.txt
outputinspector &

or

echo "" > issues.txt # erase it first
jshint app.js >> issues.txt
jshint config.js >> issues.txt
outputinspector issues.txt &

Your source file should not have any unsaved changes in any other program at the time (it is ok if in Geany or Kate--whichever outputinspector is using--but saving first and using your parser on that version is recommended for accuracy).

Other than jshint output, Output Inspector has only been tested on mcs (mono compiler) output, but may work for any C# compiler and will work for any compiler or other tool using the formatting above.

The parsing is not fault-tolerant at this time, especially for the first type of formatting.

Output of jshint is expected unless the second formatting is used by your parser (such as mcs).

• OPTIONAL: To use Geany, set: editor=/usr/bin/geany in '$HOME/.local/share/outputinspector/settings.txt" (outputinspector knows how to tell Geany which line and column for jumping to line by using args compatible with both Geany and Kate)"
• You can set any of the ini options as command line options (case sensitive). For a list of settings, see "$HOME/.local/share/outputinspector/settings.txt" after running then closing the program, or see "etc/outputinspector.example.conf"\
  • Here is an example (which overrides a setting from the settings file):
    outputinspector --ExitOnNoErrors=yes (or true or on or 1)

Overview of jshint

Usually from the nodejs-jshint package, jshint is a linting and/or hinting tool for javascript (especially node.js) which is considered a successor to jslinter. Here is the timeline:

• Kate-plugins project (original source of jslinter and other plugins) is no longer maintained since merged with Kate.
• Kate removed jslinter, and some say the kde team got complaints that jslinter was too opinionated
• jshint and possibly other js linting/hinting tools were created to fill the gap left by jslinter
• Kate-plugins can still be installed but is either difficult or impossible to get working (only via python2 -m pip install Kate-plugins as trying to use python3 such as via pip directly if python3 is the default python, you will only get errors regarding python2 style code that remains in Kate-plugins), but how to install it and where to put the plugins is unclear. For example, creating a symlink as instructed by the project doesn't work even if the extra slash is removed after the closing parenthesis of the kde4-config output. Searching all files in '/' with max file size 2048000bytes using DeepFileFind for the phrase Replicode does not yield any non-binary files or folders that look like plugin folders (only results in mo, docbook, pmapc, pmap, qm, so files, and the config file for DeepFileFind itself where search history is saved). The so file found is:
  /usr/lib/qt/plugins/ktexteditor/katereplicodeplugin.so
• How to install in userspace remains unclear, but perhaps jslinter could be placed there.
• However, one should note that after installing the package via the python2 command above:
  • there are no binaries from the Kate-plugins project, only python and python-related files, in:
    • /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/
      • /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/kate_plugins/
      • /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Kate_plugins-0.2.3-py2.7.egg-info
      • /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pyjslint-0.3.3-py2.7.egg-info/
      • or any of their subfolders.
    • A filename search for jslint in /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages yields no binaries or files other than those in the folders above.

Minetest Lua tracebacks

Output Inspector un-mangles paths with an ellipsis!

2020-03-13 03:15:17: ERROR[Main]: ServerError: AsyncErr: environment_Step: Runtime error from mod 'unified_foods' in callback environment_Step(): ...../gameshunger.lua:342: attempt to compare number with nil
2020-03-13 03:15:17: ERROR[Main]:       ...../games/ENLIVEN/mods/coderfood/unified_foods/hunger.lua:342: in function <...../games/ENLIVEN/mods/coderfood/unif

*.../dir becomes ../dir, resulting in a path such as: ../games/ENLIVEN/mods/coderfood/unified_foods/hunger.lua (this will work if you run outputinspector from the same directory as the program you ran. If the path exists in . then the path will also be transformed correctly to something like games/ENLIVEN/mods/coderfood/unified_foods/hunger.lua.

Changes

See changelog.md.

The program was formerly maintained in C++ but now in Python.

See formerly-C++.md.

Backward Compatibility

• Remember to edit $HOME/.local/share/outputinspector/settings.txt specifying the kate binary (i.e. include the line kate=/usr/bin/kate such as for Fedora 25 or editor=/usr/lib/kde4/bin/kate or appropriate command for older linux distro such as Ubuntu Hardy). You can also use Geany's path if it exists.
• Tab handling: If you are using mcs 1.2.6 or other compiler that reads tabs as 6 spaces, and you are using Kate 2 with the default tab width of 8 or are using Kate 3, you don't have to change anything. Otherwise:
  • Set CompilerTabWidth and Kate2TabWidth in $HOME/.local/share/outputinspector/settings.txt -- kate 3.0.0+ is handled automatically, but CompilerTabWidth may have to be set. If the compiler treats tabs as 1 character, make sure you set CompilerTabWidth=1 -- as of 1.2.6, mcs counts tabs as 6 spaces (outputinspector default).
• If the editor setting is not present but the kate setting is, the program will copy the setting to the new editor variable in the conf file.

References

• Urban, M., & Murach, J. (2016). Murach’s Python Programming [VitalSource Bookshelf]. Retrieved from https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781943872152-