Deciding What Data You Want to Collect

After you decide where to call the FFSTProbe function, you need to decide what data to capture. The question to ask is, "What data would I need to see to have a good chance of determining the source of the error?" Consider capturing data items that are global variables and control blocks.

Other things to consider are:

• How much data you need to determine the cause of the problem?
  
• Has this problem been encountered before?
  
• How complex is the code?
  
• Are other components or products being called?
  
• Does the error message information point to the problem?

Make every effort to collect enough data to solve the problem without requiring the user to re-create the problem.

The amount of data collected could also be affected by the amount of system storage that is available or allocated to store error data.