The messages window

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#### 6.10.1 The messages window

The output of the external utilities is redirected by the IDE and it will be displayed in the messages window. The messages window is displayed automatically, if an external tool was run. The messages window can also be displayed manually by selecting the menu item ”Tools—Messages” or by pressing the F11 key. The messages window is shown in figure (6.17).

Figure 6.17: The messages window

If the output of the tool contains filenames and line numbers, the messages window can be used to navigate the source as in a browse window:

1.
  Pressing Enter or double clicking the output line will jump to the specified source line and close the messages window.
2.
  Pressing the space bar will jump to the specified source line, but will leave the messages window open, with the focus on it. This allows the quick selection of another message line with the arrow keys and jump to another location in the sources.

The algorithm which extracts the file names and line numbers from the tool output is quite sophisticated, but in some cases it may fail4.

4 Suggestions for improvement, or better yet, patches that improve the algorithm, are always welcome.

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