"show" family debugging commands

Question

As discussed here, there are many commands which can be used to "debug" (La)TeX composing process.

I also know that sometimes the \show command can be used to show the macro definitions.

Nevertheless I know that there are some debug/tracing commands which start with show, for example \showboxbreadth=xx as one can see here.

Is there any list of such commands and their doings?

Answer 1

The book TeX By Topic by Victor Eijkhout describes some \show... macros.

In the following overview X means some integer value and Y and 8-bit number, \Z is short for some 'internal quantity' such as a count, dimen, \skip or token register, W is a word or space separated list of words.

• \show is primitive command and shows the meaning of a token, i.e. what \meaning\foo does within the document.
• \showboxdepth=X has the value of the deepest level of box nesting, defaulting to X=3 in plain TeX
• \showboxbreadth=X has the maximum number of items shown per level This has a plain TeX default of X=5
• \showlists is a primitive and writes the content of partial box lists in all of the 4 non-math TeX modes (i.e. horizontal/vertical and the restricted versions)
• \showthe\Y prints the content of a \Y quantity as in the document with \the, \the\footoks
• \showhyphens{W} displays the hyphenation of W on the terminal/log according to the hyphenation rules.

Now, the eTeX standard (which is a standard by now as of writing this in April 2017) adds some more \show... tools

• \showifs (activated with \tracingifs=1)
• \showgroups (\tracinggroups=1)
• \showtokens for token lists and content, that is not possible to show with \show or \showthe.

These three eTeX additions are mode-independent.

LaTeX adds some wrapper macros, such as

• \showoutput
• \showoverfull
• \showhyphens (being redefined)

and sets initially \showboxbreadth=-1 and \showboxdepth=-1 as well.

Here's a sample LaTeX document for the plain TeX \show... entities.

\documentclass{article}


\newbox\foobox

\setbox\foobox=\hbox{A nice text}


\newcount\foocnt
\foocnt=17


\newtoks\footok
\footok={Gandalf The Grey}

\tracingoutput=1
\tracingonline=1

\begin{document}
\showboxbreadth=10 
\showboxdepth=2
\scrollmode
\showbox\foobox

\showthe\footok

\showthe\foocnt

% Show lists 
a\hfil\break b\par
c\hfill\break d
\hbox{e\vbox{f\showlists}}

\end{document}

The output is both on console as in the .log file (here I cut the header and the bottom statistics to provide the \show... related output only):

> \box26=
\hbox(6.83331+0.0)x48.88896
.\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 A
.\glue 3.33333 plus 1.66498 minus 1.11221
.\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 n
.\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 i
.\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 c
.\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 e
.\glue 3.33333 plus 1.66666 minus 1.11111
.\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 t
.\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 e
.\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 x
.etc.

! OK.
l.23 \showbox\foobox


> Gandalf The Grey.
l.25 \showthe\footok


> 17.
l.27 \showthe\foocnt



### horizontal mode entered at line 32
\hbox(0.0+0.0)x15.0
\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 f
spacefactor 1000
### internal vertical mode entered at line 32
prevdepth ignored
### restricted horizontal mode entered at line 32
\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 e
spacefactor 1000
### horizontal mode entered at line 31
\hbox(0.0+0.0)x15.0
\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 c
\glue 0.0 plus 1.0fill
\penalty -10000
\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 d
\glue 3.33333 plus 1.66666 minus 1.11111
spacefactor 1000
### vertical mode entered at line 0
### current page:
\write-{}
\glue(\topskip) 5.69446
\hbox(4.30554+0.0)x345.0, glue set 324.99998fil
.\hbox(0.0+0.0)x15.0
.\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 a
.\glue 0.0 plus 1.0fil
.\penalty -10000
.\glue(\rightskip) 0.0
\penalty 300
\glue(\baselineskip) 5.05556
\hbox(6.94444+0.0)x345.0, glue set 339.44443fil
.\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 b
.\penalty 10000
.\glue(\parfillskip) 0.0 plus 1.0fil
.\glue(\rightskip) 0.0
\glue(\parskip) 0.0 plus 1.0
total height 22.0 plus 1.0
 goal height 550.0
prevdepth 0.0

! OK.
l.32 \hbox{e\vbox{f\showlists
                             }}


Overfull \hbox (12.22223pt too wide) in paragraph at lines 31--33
\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 d [] 

\hbox(6.94444+0.0)x345.0, glue set - 1.0
.\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 d
.\glue 3.33333 plus 1.66666 minus 1.11111
.\hbox(6.94444+0.0)x349.44444
..\OT1/cmr/m/n/10 e
..\vbox(6.94444+0.0)x345.0 []
.\penalty 10000
.\glue(\parfillskip) 0.0 plus 1.0fil
.\glue(\rightskip) 0.0


Completed box being shipped out [1]
\vbox(633.0+0.0)x407.0
.\glue 16.0
.\vbox(617.0+0.0)x345.0, shifted 62.0
..\vbox(12.0+0.0)x345.0, glue set 12.0fil []
..\glue 25.0
..\glue(\lineskip) 0.0
..\vbox(550.0+0.0)x345.0, glue set 503.94617fil []
..\glue(\baselineskip) 23.55556
..\hbox(6.44444+0.0)x345.0, glue set 170.0fil []