While reading a Slack message group, I saw a member post a code snippet. It wasn’t something I was familiar with, but I was curious. Using some online tools, I was able to glean more information. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to use SnagIt and ChatGPT to better understand code examples or error messages.
Getting the Program Code
In this instance, the program code was embedded in a picture. This meant I couldn’t copy the text directly. I could either retype it or use some text extraction tool. I wasn’t in the mood to retype it. In fact, I don’t think I would ever be in the mood, even though this code snippet had a humorous holiday angle.
Extracting Text from the Image
There are tools that extract text from images. However, SnagIt, my favorite image editor, includes a text extraction tool that is like OCR. All I needed to do was to use the Grab Text function on the image.
The program overlays a dialog box with a progress bar. Once done, you’ll see the extracted text.
SnagIt places a red underline on words it thinks are misspelled. For coding examples, it’s common to see these. There are also subtle font differences and line spacing. At this stage, you could edit the text if you wanted it to appear exactly as the original image.
Using ChatGPT
Many people are familiar with ChatGPT from OpenAI. It’s garnered a lot of press and can be used for many purposes. Lots of people are testing it to write content. However, I wanted it to help me understand the code snippet. The service is free at this time and requires you to set up an account or sign in with a Google or Microsoft account.
- With your browser, navigate to https://chat.openai.com/auth/login
- Click the Log in or Sign Up button. You may have to confirm you’re not a robot.
- Click Continue.
- You should see a small ChatGPT dialog indicating this is a free research preview. Click Next.
- At the final panel, click Done. You’ll see the start page.
The service provides some useful information in three columns [A, B, C] that outline examples and limitations. For example, the service states it can generate incorrect information and doesn’t know world events after 2021. In addition, it can’t give you citations.
Create the ChatGPT Prompt
We’ve all heard the expression “garbage in, garbage out, ” which applies here. The usefulness of the service depends on how you form your prompt. The prompt is what you type in the chatbox [D]. You can see examples of prompts in column [A] above.
In my case, I just typed in the chatbox, “Can you explain this code for me?” and pasted in the extracted text from SnagIt. The tool is pretty forgiving, and I didn’t have to worry about formatting.
Soon after hitting the Enter key, the service was typing its answer. The system provides a different icon in the top left, and the background color changes slightly. This is useful because you can continue to ask ChatGPT questions and expand the conversation. At the far-right are icons where you can indicate if the answer is good or bad. If you select the thumbs-down icon, you have an opportunity to say what’s wrong.
At the bottom, you’ll see you can refine your conversation by providing another prompt in the chatbox. In this case, I wanted to know why someone would use this code. You can see from the answer that ChatGPT isn’t entirely sure, which makes sense. However, it does provide an explanation and asks if I have additional information.
Could ChatGPT Extract the Text?
Not exactly, and it depends on which version of ChatGPT you’re using. Without going into details about models, ChatGPT has a free version and a paid subscription called ChatGPT Plus. At the time of this writing, the free version could not extract the text. However, with the paid version, you can use various plugins and beta features.
One of the versatile beta features is called Code interpreter. It allows you to upload various file types for analysis or processing. This means I could upload the JPG file to see if it could extract the text like SnagIt.
In this instance, ChatGPT Plus and Code interpreter had difficulties with the task. While it did get portions, it indicated the quality of the image and the font were presenting issues.
Testing Error Messages
Apart from code samples, I’ve also used the service to get more info on error messages. The process is similar and can be fruitful when technical support is closed. In this instance, SnagIt omitted a few backticks when extracting the text. I don’t think it impacted the conversation. However, you should double-check your extracted text.
While you can’t see it from the screen snap above, the chat reply included two suggestions for fixing this error.
Retaining the Information
Another nice feature of using this system is ChatGPT can retain your sessions. This means you can come back and look at your conversation, resume, or even regenerate another response. In other words, you could use it as a repository of code sample explanations.
The system will retain and show your session on the left side by default. A pencil icon and a trash can are to the right of each entry. These allow you to edit the chat title to a more meaningful name instead of the first portion of your initial prompt. You can also delete sessions.
While the service is still free, I’d encourage you to try it. Although I used coding examples and error codes, you can ask just about anything. The worst that can happen is it will tell you it can’t provide an answer. Or, maybe you realize gluten-free focaccia isn’t appetizing.
Just remember, like all information, you want to trust but verify. These tools are not perfect, but the more you use them, the more you learn how to work with them.