Yes, I know it can be achieved with breakpoints, but I think an explicit “Pause build” action (very similar to “Stop Run”) would be handy.Steve
Or you could use an Ask Question or MessageBox action?
.t8
They don’t pause it. They indefinitely delay its completion, but you can’t do stuff like checking watches, viewing the log, modifying the values of variables etc.I was actually thinking in terms of putting a “Pause build” step immediately after an Ask Question actually, like "Would you like to pause here?"Steve
The problem with Pause is that it’s outside the scope of what an action does. Pause is triggered on the build engine itself and we wouldn’t want to expose this to the Action API. Plus there’s the problem with running from FBCMD - if a build pauses in FBCMD, how do you continue it?
Basically, breakpoints are more flexible and “pausing” is for when you’re debugging the build. It wouldn’t be a good idea to have pause actions littering your action list.
Steve,
I agree with Tate, pausing is a debug opertaion and not something that should be incorporated into the engine.
Here’s an idea though:
Create an ActionList that has the actions you want to do during the “pause” (like display variables, prompt for new values for variables, export the log to HTML for review, etc) and just call that Action List when you need to.
Also, if you’re concerned about watches, there is a Log Variables action item you can use to track the values of certain variables through the script execution.
Just some ideas, take them as you will. There are lots of creative ways to do waht you’re trying to do.
Good points, though I would weakly argue that if “stop” is an action, “pause” could be. I would also have assumed that “pause” would be unavailable at fbcmd runtime, just like other interactive actions.In any case, a nice simple workaround is an action list called “Pause” which contains a null statement with a breakpoint on it. On that front though, a genuine breakpointable null statement would be handy - comments don’t work. I end up setting a variable to itself.Steve
Action Groups are good null actions. Unlike comments, they actually get executed - but they don’t do anything.
Ta!Steve