This is the online Help file for SmartCheck What’s This context-sensitive help.

There are two types of “topics” in this file.

1.	The first, Comment topic, serves to identify a section as pertaining to a certain dialog boxes. The first type of topic is not seen or accessible by the user and serve only organizational purposes for the Help author. They are denoted by a Comment: at the beginning of the topic.

2.	The second type of topic contains the actual context-sensitive help text for a dialog field/control. These topics display  the # context_id footnote  at the beginning of the topic. Within a dialog box section, context-sensitive Help topics are organized according to the tab order for the specified dialog.


Contents

The following are test links.

File Open command

Edit Find command

View Preferences command

Program Run command

Window cascade command

Help Explain command

Program Execution toolbar

Standard toolbar

Event View toolbar


Comment: Program Transcript Window


Default pane
Program Transcript Window

Reports the loading and unloading of program components and debug events.


Default pane
Reviewing Compliance Report

Reports on your program's compliance with Microsoft's three 32-bit APIs (Win32s, Win32 for Windows 95, and Win32 for Windows NT).

The report presents: a list of API functions used, categorized by the API; C Run-Time Library calls that are not supported by ANSI C; undocumented functions


Comment: Program Results Window: Details Panes


Default pane
Details -- Default Pane

There is no additional information available for the currently selected item in the Program Events pane.


Call pane
Details – Call Pane

Supplies additional information about the parameters passed to the selected API call.


Default pane
Error Pane

Displays SmartCheck and Visual Basic error messages.


Value Coercion Pane
Details – Value Coercion Pane

Displays the original and converted values generated by the selected value coercion event in the Program Event pane.


Value Coercion Pane
Details – Object Pane

Identifies the object being acted on in the currently selected line of the Program Event pane.


Program Event Pane

Displays the sequence of program events and errors generated by your program as it executes. (Use View menu options to filter the contents of this pane.)


Program Event Pane
 Source File Pane

Displays the source code associated with the currently selected error or event in the Program Event pane.


Comment: Error Detected Window


Acknowledge that you see this as an error and enter the error in the error log for later viewing. The program execution continues.


Suppress recognition of the error and avoid stopping on the error again in a particular function, file, or module. Use Suppress if the error reported is properly handled by the program. A dialog prompts you to further define the scope of suppression.


Summarizes the type of error detected.


Stop checking and close the file.


Display a description of this error, possible causes, and suggested repair.


Show and hide the Stack and Source window panes.


Comment: The following topics apply to the Suppress Error dialog


Suppresses the current type of error when it occurs in the same function.


Suppresses the current type of error when it occurs in the same function.


Suppresses the current type error when it occurs in the same executable file or dynamic link library.


Suppresses the current type error when it occurs in the same executable file or dynamic link library.


Suppresses the current type of error when it occurs in the same source file.


Suppress the current type of  error regardless of where it occurs.


Suppresses the current type of error when it occurs in the same source file.


Suppresses the current type of error in future runs of the same application.


Suppresses the current type of error in future runs of the same application.


Suppresses the current type of error in future runs of the same application.


Enter a comment about the suppression item.


Enter a comment about the suppression item.


Comment: The following topics apply to the Settings dialog - Error Detection common controls


Lists error detection categories.

Click any category name to view associated sub-settings. Click checkboxes to select or clear any item.

Memory errors detects errors involving memory, uninitialized memory, and memory overwrites when calling Windows APIs.
Pointer errors detects errors involving pointers, including invalid reads from memory (uninitialized read before write), and invalid writes to memory (overwrites to the heap, stack, or static memory).
Leak errors displays leaks in the Program Results window as you check your program for errors (with this option turned off, SmartCheck displays leaks in the Program Results window only when you stop checking your program).
API and OLE function call errors detects errors return codes from API and OLE interface method calls.


Lists error detection categories.

Click any category name to view associated sub-settings. Click checkboxes to select or clear any item.

Memory errors detects errors involving memory, uninitialized memory, and memory overwrites when calling Windows APIs.
Pointer errors detects errors involving pointers, including invalid reads from memory (uninitialized read before write), and invalid writes to memory (overwrites to the heap, stack, or static memory).
Leak errors displays leaks in the Program Results window as you check your program for errors (with this option turned off, SmartCheck displays leaks in the Program Results window only when you stop checking your program).
API and OLE function call errors detects errors return codes from API and OLE interface method calls.


Controls the display of the Program Error Detected window. When this option is active, SmartCheck reports each error, immediately upon detecting it, in the Program Error Detected window.

Clear this option if you do not want the Program Error Detected window to appear while checking your program. In this case, SmartCheck logs errors and other events and displays this data when you finish checking your program.


Saves the current error detection scheme (including all sub-settings in each error category) as the default for all programs you check in the future. Otherwise, SmartCheck defaults to the Normal error detection scheme.


Displays the Advanced error detection settings.


Reinstates the initial, default error detection configuration provided by SmartCheck.


Comment: The following topics apply to the Settings dialog - Error Detection, Custom, memory error checking


Settings to support advanced error detection capabilities


Detects errors involving memory, uninitialized memory, and memory overwrites when calling Windows APIs.


Detects uninitialized memory errors. Uninitialized memory errors occur when your program read from memory before writing to memory (the first write to memory is considered an initialize). These errors can occur in either stack variables or memory blocks.

This feature is only available if the BoundsChecker edition for Visual C is installed on your system, and you have implemented BoundsChecker compile-time instrumentation in your program.


Checks the state of each program variable using a special SmartCheck tracking algorithm (rather than examining a fill-pattern for each variable). This option produces the most accurate error information, but does impact performance.

This feature is only available if the BoundsChecker edition for Visual C is installed on your system, and you have implemented BoundsChecker compile-time instrumentation in your program.


Specifies the character used to fill memory that your program has allocated but not yet used. Fill characters are used to detect writes or reads from allocated memory.

You may want to change the fill character if your program uses that character in program data files.


Specifies the character used to fill memory that your program has allocated but not yet used. Fill characters are used to detect writes or reads from allocated memory.

You may want to change the fill character if your program uses that character in program data files.


Specifies the character used to fill memory that your program has allocated but not yet used. Fill characters are used to detect writes or reads from allocated memory.

You may want to change the fill character if your program uses that character in program data files.


Specifies the character used to fill memory that your program has allocated but not yet used. Fill characters are used to detect writes or reads from allocated memory.

You may want to change the fill character if your program uses that character in program data files.


Checks all program heap blocks for overruns when you allocate, deallocate, or reallocate a block of memory. Selecting this option slows execution but catches the block overruns nearer to their actual locations.

With this option turned off, SmartCheck checks only the block of memory that is allocated, deallocated, or reallocated.


Sets the number of guard bytes placed at the end of dynamically allocated memory, for example, arrays allocated by malloc. (Statically allocated arrays do not receive guard bytes.) Select a value that is a multiple of 4 but is no higher than 32.


Sets the number of guard bytes placed at the end of dynamically allocated memory, for example, arrays allocated by malloc. (Statically allocated arrays do not receive guard bytes.) Select a value that is a multiple of 4 but is no higher than 32.


Caches events in memory to reduce disk I/O. Caching significantly improves performance for programs that perform repetitive operations with little user interaction. Programs that use timer events may benefit from caching.

When caching is enabled:

•	•	•	SmartCheck does not display events in the Program Results window until they are written to disk.

•	•	•	If your program crashes with a system fault, SmartCheck will not be able to save your program events.


 Improves performance by significantly reducing the amount of information saved by SmartCheck. When this setting is enabled, SmartCheck monitors system calls to provide analysis for runtime errors, but does not save them to disk.

This setting is particularly recommended for programs that use data bound controls, because a single Visual Basic operation to load a data item into a control can result in hundreds of system API and OLE calls for every record in the database.


Causes SmartCheck to defer display of event and error information in the Program Results window, until you exit the program.


Re-sets the system-level error code associated with failed API functions, to zero, prior to each new API call.


Comment: The following topics apply to the Settings dialog - Error Detection, Custom,

pointer and leak error checking


Detects errors involving pointers, including invalid reads from memory (uninitialized read before write), and invalid writes to memory (overwrites to the heap, stack, or static memory).


Detects memory, resource, and interface leaks.


Follows the stack to find up to 20 routines a program called in association with a memory allocation and writes those routines to the event log.

With this option turned off, the allocations are attributed to the current execution address, which often is a library function. In this case, you get no information about where in your program the allocations occurred.


Displays leaks in the Program Results window as you check your program for errors.

With this option turned off, SmartCheck displays leaks in the Program Results window only when you stop checking your program.

This feature is only available if the BoundsChecker edition for Visual C is installed on your system, and you have implemented BoundsChecker compile-time instrumentation in your program.


Comment: The following topics apply to the Settings  dialog - Error Detection, Custom,

API and OLE error checking


Detects errors return codes from API and OLE interface method calls.


Checks that an OLE object implements every interface in the program. For the most part, you do not want to select this option, because OLE objects do not need to implement every interface.

You may want to select this option when checking that an OLE server properly supports all of the required interfaces for that server.


Detects errors involving arguments on API and OLE interface method calls.


Resets the Last Error value to zero before your program calls a function.


Comment: The following topics apply to the Settings  dialog - Error Detection, Custom,

Detailed Error Reporting


Reports errors even if associated source code is not available. SmartCheck occasionally finds errors in Windows or in other third-party modules. These modules do not have associated debug information.


Catches and logs all errors in a sequence of related errors. For example, if an API call had an invalid argument, SmartCheck would catch the error but also would report that the API call failed.


Logs only the first occurrence of an error; subsequent errors are not entered in the program event log nor displayed in the Program Results window.


Comment: The following topics apply to the Settings dialog -  Event Reporting,


Specifies that you want SmartCheck to collect API calls and returns and record these events in the program event log.

You can also choose to collect and report additional events.


Specifies the additional event types that you want to collect and report in the program event log.


Records runtime errors managed by your program’s own error handlers.


Records all mouse movements.


Analyzes errors as they occur, and includes diagnostic information when displaying them.


Records Windows messages to the event log.


Records hooks to the event log.


Comment: The following topics apply to the Settings dialog -  Program info tab


Enter the directory where you will run your program.


Enter the directory where you will run your program.


Open a browse dialog to search your system and select the directory from which to run your program.


Enter parameters to pass along with the Run command.


Enter parameters to pass along with the Run command.


Enter parameters to pass along with the Run command.


Enter the path that contains your program source files. This may be different from the directory where a program resides, if you started the program with a full path name.


Enter the path that contains your program source files. This may be different from the directory where a program resides, if you started the program with a full path name.


Open a browse dialog to search your system and append paths for selected directories to the current source file search path.


Comment: The following topics apply to the Settings dialog -  Error Suppression tab


Lists the available suppression libraries. Select the libraries you want to use when checking your program for errors.


Lists the available suppression libraries. Select the libraries you want to use when checking your program for errors.


Lists each of the suppression items. You can remove a specific item from this list or add an API function to the library.

The list also displays items you chose to suppress from the Program Error Detected window.

Note that you cannot remove or change suppression items from the suppression libraries supplied with SmartCheck.


Lists each of the suppression items. You can remove a specific item from this list or add an API Function to the library.

The list also displays items you chose to suppress from the Program Error Detected window.


Removes the selected suppression item from the related suppression library.


Adds a specified API function to the suppression items list.


Comment: The following topics apply to the Settings dialog -   Error Suppression, Add API


Lists the available functions for the selected API. Select a function to add it to the list of suppression items.


Comment: The following topics apply to the Settings dialog -   Files to Check tab


Lists the program executables, DLLs, and OCXs  to check for errors.


Lists the program executables, DLLs, and OCXs  to check for errors.


Add a program module to the module list.


Removes the selected DLL or OCX from the list.


Lists the available source files in the selected module.


Lists the available source files in the selected module.


Add a program file to the source file list.


Removes selected items from the list of source files to check.


Comment: The following topics apply to the Specific events dialog


Displays detected errors and memory/interface leaks in the Results window.


Displays all program errors and events in the Results window.


Displays detected errors and the selected events in the Results window.


Lists the event types you can choose to display in the Program Results window.

Click Help for a description of the listed event types.

Note that you can only display events contained in the event log.  If you chose not to collect and report an event type, you cannot display those events.


Saves the current settings for use when displaying subsequent instances of the Results window. This setting affects the display of results for the current program and subsequent programs.


Displays the currently selected errors and events in the Results window.

You can also control the display of errors and events using the Event View tool bar.


Comment: The following are topics for the Find dialog box


Enter a text string, select a previously entered item from the drop-down list,  or click [image] to select the error or other item you want to find.


Enter a text string, select a previously entered item from the drop-down list, or click [image] to select the error or other item you want to find.


Enter a text string, select a previously entered item from the drop-down list, or click [image] to select the error or other item you want to find.


Enter a text string, select a previously entered item from the drop-down list, or click [image] to select the error or other item you want to find.


Enter a text string, select a previously entered item from the drop-down list, or click [image] to select the error or other item you want to find.


Lists the predefined error and event types for which you can search. You can also add text preceding or following the error/event type to further restrict your search.


Performs a case-sensitive search for the specified text. If this item is not selected, SmartCheck will search for all instances of the specified text.


Performs a search for the specified word only; does not search for the word as part of a larger word or string.


Finds the next occurrence of an item.


Finds the previous occurrence of an item.


Comment: Event Summary dialog


 Event Summary (legend of icons) Defines the graphic icons used to represent different event categories in the events listing within the program results window.


Comment: The following are topics for the Toolbars dialog box


Displays the selected SmartCheck tool bar(s) you want to use.  As you make your selection, SmartCheck displays or removes the related tool bar from the main window.

Event View toolbar: Lets you choose the events shown in the Program Results window.

Standard toolbar: Lets you open, copy, and print program results.

Program Execution: Lets you set error detection options and run programs.

Click Help for a description of each toolbar item.


Displays the selected SmartCheck tool bar(s) you want to use.  As you make your selection, SmartCheck displays or removes the related tool bar from the main window.

Event View toolbar: Lets you choose the events shown in the Progam Results window.

Standard toolbar: Lets you open, copy, and print program results.

Program Execution: Lets you set error detection options and run programs.

Click Help for a description of each toolbar item.


Displays button names when you move the pointer over buttons on the tool bar.


Returns toolbar and tooltip selections to the last-saved settings.


Provides a description of SmartCheck tool bars.


Comment: The following are topics for the Preferences dialog box


Displays the SmartCheck windows or data for which you can set display attributes. Select an item, then  view or change the attributes for that item.

Click Help for a description of each item.


Displays the SmartCheck windows or data for which you can set display attributes. Select an item, then  view or change the attributes for that item.

Click Help for a description of each item.


Displays the current font, font style, and font size used when displaying text or data in the selected item.


Displays the current font used when displaying text or data in the selected item.


Displays the current font size and font style used when displaying text or data in the selected item.


Displays available options for changing the font, font style, or font size of the selected item.


Shows how text or data in the selected item will appear using the current font settings. You can use this sample to preview font changes before saving your changes.


Shows how text or data in the selected item will appear using the current font settings. You can use this sample to preview font changes before saving your changes.


Resets the attributes of each item to product defaults.


Comment: The following are SHARED topics for common dialog controls: OK, Cancel, Close, Help


Closes this dialog box without saving your changes.


Closes this dialog box and saves your changes.


Provides information on how to perform tasks in this dialog.


Closes this dialog box without saving any changes you have made.


Processes your input and carries out any default action, such as closing the dialog box.


Provides information on how to perform tasks in this dialog.


Comment: The following are topics for menu commands


Open an existing document.


Close the active document.


Save the active document under a new name.


Print the active document.


Display full pages.


Mail the active document.


Open the named file.


Open the named file.


Open the named file.


Open the named file.


Quit the application.

(By default, program results are not saved.
Use Save As before exiting if  you want to

save results.)


Copy the selection to the Clipboard.


Specify items to search for.


Find the next occurrence of an item.


Find the previous occurrence of an item.


Find the next occurrence of an error.


Find the previous occurrence of an error.


Prevent the selected error from being reported again during the current program session.


View the source code associated with the event selected in the Program Results window.


Move focus to the higher-level event that encompasses the currently selected event.


Display summary event counts.


Only show Errors and Leaks in the Program Results window.


Show all events, including errors and leaks, in the Program Results window.


Show errors and any user-specified combination of events. (Use the Specific Events command on the View menu to specify the combination of events to display.)


Choose which events to show in the Program Results window.


Show or hide arguments to API calls.


Show or hide sequence numbers.


Increase indentation of thread-related events.


Decrease indentation of thread-related events.


Shows all items in the hierarchy of events in the Program Results window.


Shows all items in the currently selected branch of the event hierarchy in the Program Results window.


Collapses the event hierarchy in the Program Results window to show only top-level events.


Collapses the currently selected branch of the event hierarchy in the Program Results window to show only the top-level event for the branch.


Select toolbars to be displayed.


Show or hide the status bar.


Change colors and fonts used to display events.


Run the current program.


Stop the current program.


Change the settings for the current program.


Check the compliance of your entire program against the Win32 APIs.


Check the compliance in the current results listing against the Win32 APIs.


Open another window for the active document.


Show all open windows at once, in an overlapping display.


Show all open windows at once, in a tiled display.


Arrange icons at the bottom of the window.


Display help contents.


After selecting this menu option, click any item in the window to view help for it.


Explain the selected error.


Display program name, version number and copyright information.


Comment: The following are topics for toolbars


Program execution toolbar


Standard toolbar


Prevents SmartCheck from displaying the Program Error Detected window each time an error occurs. Identical to the Report Errors Immediately option available under Settings on the Program menu.


Event view toolbar