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I'm trying to debug the infamous Unrecognized entry in undo list undo-tree-canary, and after having Emacs debugger triggered on error, I want to move back and forth between stack frames and to examine state of variables. Sort of what frame 3 command in gdb would do.

Unfortunately I haven't found this question asked before, and searching through Emacs documentation haven't been fruitful for me.

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Simply move point in the *Backtrace* buffer to the corresponding line of the frame you're interested in.

examine state of variables

Then press v (debugger-toggle-locals) to show local variables in the frame, or e (debugger-eval-expression) to evaluate an expression in the frame's context. Note that you won't have access to lexical variables when the function is byte compiled.

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  • Doesn't seem to work. For example, the trace shows values of arguments that primitive-undo was called with, in particular "list" arg is set to "(undo-tree-canary)" text. But when I move point in *Backtrace* buffer over this line and evaluate list expecting to see its value, I get "void variable list". Same happens if I additionally press enter over the function, thus getting redirected to the source. The source of simple.el isn't byte-compiled for me.
    – Hi-Angel
    Jun 9, 2019 at 16:32
  • I just figured I should use e to inspect variables in *Backtrace* buffer (I've used M-: instead). Still, for every possible stack frame, when I evaluate with e the argument that the function in frame was called with, I get "void variable", even though I can see value of the argument inside the backtrace.
    – Hi-Angel
    Jun 9, 2019 at 16:48
  • @Hi-Angel Are you stopping in primitive-undo using debug-on-entry? I noticed it seems to mess up the frames so the debugger gets a bit confused.
    – npostavs
    Jun 9, 2019 at 18:15
  • I use toggle-debug-on-error, can it have a similar problem? Btw, thanks for the hint about v, when I press it over primitive-undo, I get only 2 local variables, and none of them are arguments of the function, screenshot. I guess this is a bug in Emacs itself, right?
    – Hi-Angel
    Jun 9, 2019 at 18:24
  • @Hi-Angel, hmm sort of works for me, I'm seeing the arguments to the function, but I can only evaluate them in the frame below that, screenshot
    – npostavs
    Jun 9, 2019 at 18:55

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