Where 16-bit versions of SCI had two blank spaces in their PMachine instruction set, SCI2 introduced the _line_ and _file_ instructions, which the compiler could inject into the final bytecode so that the built-in debugger could then work out exactly which source code line matched the current instruction. Here’s how that goes down in practice.

First we make two test scripts, 42.SC and 69.SC:

(script# 42)
 
(procedure
	Test
)
 
(public
	Test 1
)
 
(procedure (Test)
	(Display "This is Test, (42 1).")
)

(script# 69)
 
(procedure
	TestA
	TestB
)
 
(public
	TestA 0
	TestB 1
)
 
(extern
	Test 42 1
)
 
(procedure (TestA)
	(Display "This is TestA, about to call TestB.")
	(TestB)
	(Display "Back in TestA, gonna call (42 1).")
	(Test)
	(Display "Back in TestA.")
)
 
(procedure (TestB)
	(Display "This is TestB.")
)

This may look a mite different from SCI Companion code because despite everything, they are not the same. Now, compiling them both in SC version 4.100, from January 12 1995, and then pulling them back through a disassembler and annotating it a bit, we get this output:

; 42.SC
;-------
Test:	_line_	11	;(procedure (Test)
	_file_	"42.sc"
	_line_	12	;	(Display "Hello my darling.")
	push1
	lofsa	$6
	push
	callk	Display, 2
	bnot
	_line_	13	;)
	ret
 
; 69.SC
;-------
TestA:	_line_	17	;(procedure (TestA)
	_file_	"69.sc"
	_line_	18	;	(Display "This is TestA, about to call TestB.")
	push1
	lofsa	$6
	push
	callk	Display, 2
	_line_	19	;	(TestB)
	push0
	call	TestB, 0
	_line_	20	;	(Display "Back in TestA, gonna call (42 1).")
	push1
	lofsa	$2a
	push
	callk	Display, 2
	_line_	21	;	(Test)
	push0
	calle	Test, 0
	_line_	22	;	(Display "Back in TestA.")
	push1
	lofsa	$4a
	push
	callk	Display, 2
	_line_	23	;)
	ret
 
TestB:	_line_	25	;(procedure (TestB)
	_file_	"69.sc"
	_line_	26	;	(Display "This is TestB.")
	push1
	lofsa	$59
	push
	callk	Display, 2
	_line_	27	;)
	ret

Every time the PMachine encounters a _file_ opcode, it grabs a null-terminated string from the bytecode stream and places it into pm.curSourceFile. Likewise, _line_ takes a 16-bit number and places it into pm.curSourceLineNum. The built-in debugger can then notice when these two values change, find the source file, and display the correct line of code.

But there’s one tiny detail that threw me off initially. Can you see it?

When TestA calls Test, the current source file changes to 69.sc, but it doesn’t change back afterwards.

Although the SCI2 source I have here doesn’t seem to call it, there is in fact a pair of functions to push and pop debug state, preserving the value of pm.curSourceFile and pm.curSourceLineNum across module calls. Which is quite obvious when you think about it. The alternative I can see would be to insert another _file_ opcode after each out-of-module call.

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