8.7 The CURRENT.STS State File

CodeView and PWB save settings and state information in the CURRENT.STS file. The file contains information about the current state of the two environments. When you restart CodeView or PWB, they read CURRENT.STS and restore their previous state. CodeView uses additional files to save your most recent color settings. These files are CLRFILE.CV4 for CV and CLRFILE.CVW for CVW.

CodeView and PWB search for these files in the directory that the INIT environment variable specifies. If no INIT environment variable exists, CodeView and PWB search the current directory. If no state file is found, new CURRENT.STS and CLRFILE.CV4 or CLRFILE.CVW files are created in the INIT directory or the current directory if no INIT variable is set.

Information about CodeView stored in CURRENT.STS includes:

Window layout

Breakpoints

Watch expressions

Source, Local, and Memory display options

Global CodeView options such as case sensitivity, screen exchange method, radix, and expression evaluator

You can set CodeView options in TOOLS.INI or on the command line and then modify them during a session. They are saved in CURRENT.STS when you exit CodeView. During each CodeView session, these features are set in the following order:

1.From TOOLS.INI

2.From the CodeView command line

3.From CURRENT.STS

4.During the debugging session

The following items are not saved between sessions:

The current location (CS:IP).

The expansion state of watch expressions.

All watch expressions and their format specifiers are restored, but they appear in their contracted state.

Absolute-address breakpoints.

Breakpoints set at an absolute segment:offset address are not saved. CodeView saves breakpoints only at specific line numbers or symbols.

Memory window addresses.

Each memory window is restored with its display type and options, but CodeView does not save the starting address. Instead, Memory windows show the start of the data segment (address DS:00).