Brief description of 'source level debugging'

If you use a high level language (like C, Pascal or BASIC) to write programs for the 8051, you write the program (a.k.a. 'source code') and a compiler translates this into good old 8051 assembler. Typically, one line of source code will generate more than one 8051 assembler instruction.

When you come to debug the program, a 'source level debugger' will allow you to do useful things like :

-step thru your source code one line at a time without worrying about the actual 8051 instructions which are required to do the work.

-look at the current values of the variables in your program.

-set breakpoints, which stop your code from running when a particular line of your source code is reached.

I use a source level debugger called NoICE, you can find this at www.noicedebugger.com