[open-cobol-list] tips on studying code bases

[Patrick]

Hi Everyone

Thanks again to Brian for yet another very helpful post and I am 
thankful for the private messages I received too.

I think I am going to make another big push to learn the code base.

I printed all the source code from 1.1. I think this is okay for bulk 
memorization but I wouldn't do it again,

I ran cobc through cflow last night. It gives results like this:

main() <int main (int argc, char **argv) at cobc.c:3669>:
    memset()
    cobc_sig_handler() <void COB_A_NORETURN cobc_sig_handler (int sig) 
at cobc.c:1478>:
        raise()
        kill()
        getpid()
        exit()
continues on....

It shows that raise, kill, getpid etc are callable from cobc_sig_handler 
but it can't tell which path of execution it will take.

I was thinking of building a version with a whole bunch of printf 
statements inside each function that would print the path of execution, 
"I am raise()"  etc.

I thought that I would then look at each function and then use ctags to 
view the argument definitions.

Does this sound like a logical way to study the code base ? If not could 
you recommend some other techniques ?

Thanks-Patrick