Text Analysis InternationalMakers of VisualText & NLP++ · 1998–2018

Using Dump Files

Original VisualText 2 documentation (2001–2013). For the current NLP++ tools, see visualtext.org.

Using Dump Files

To debug your analyzer it is often helpful to output information to dump files.  Dump files are created by inserting a line of code in the desired pass file indicating where to output the information.   

To create a dump file:

  1. In the Ana Tab, right-click on a pass file to open it in the Workspace.

  2. In the pass file, add a printing statement using the "<<" operator in the following form: "dump_file_name.txt" << content_to_print.  Below is a rule from the corporate analyzer that dumps the matched rule text into a dump file called "anaphora":

To view a dump file:

  1. On the Debug Toolbar, click on the arrow next to the View Dump Files   icon.  

  2. Select a dump file from the pulldown menu.

 

Note:

  • Dump files are created and housed in a system-created directory with a name corresponding to the name of the text file in the project directory.

  • The blue arrow icon on the Debug Toolbar is reserved for output files with the name "output.txt" only.

  • Dump files that do not include a .txt extension will not show up in View Dump Files pulldown menu.

  • See the NLP++ section for other ways to redirect data to output files.