Best way to debug in MVC

sdsaran has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Best way to debug in MVC by redhotpenguin (Deacon) on Jun 02, 2005 at 05:25 UTC
I use Test::More and Test::WWW::Mechanize to write unit tests for the models and controllers, and use Log::Log4perl to print debugging information in the modules to the error log. I use the perl debugger to step through each of the tests while I write them akin to the technique described in Interactive scripting with debugger. It takes some patience and practice, but I can find errors quickly because of the Log::Log4perl output which contains module line numbers, and once the test is passing I rarely have to come back to the same problem.	[reply]
Re: Best way to debug in MVC by eXile (Priest) on Jun 02, 2005 at 05:28 UTC
I'm afraid the 'best way' to debug anything depends on what you are debugging, what the exact problem is you are debugging, and your debugging preferences. So I'm afraid I can't give you the 'best way'. I sometimes use a debug switch in my code at critical points like: `my $DEBUG=1; ... my $val = get_something("vars"); warn $val if ($DEBUG && ! $val); ... my $val2 = do_something_else($val); warn $val2 if ($DEBUG && $val2 =~ /^\w{2}\d{2}$/);` [download] This way you can turn off/on debugging by (un)setting the master-switch $DEBUG, and even use different $DEBUG values for different types of debugging, the sky is the limit. If you want to see the call tree of your program you could use Devel::Dprof. If you want to see the content of complex structures, you could use Data::Dumper. Some people really like the perl debugger, you can do some cool tricks with it, see the perldebug docs.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Best way to debug in MVC by perl_devel (Friar) on Jun 02, 2005 at 05:37 UTC
Apart from warn you have other options carp,cloak confess which gives full stack trace or minimal stack trace You can also use a similiar thing as mentioned before $DEBUG=1; ... my $val = get_something("vars"); warn $val if ($DEBUG && ! $val); But with a change istead of warn use mail which mails the errors to you alone instead of Showing it to entire world :=) Regards P.B.Sathish Kumar	[reply]
Re: Best way to debug in MVC by astroboy (Chaplain) on Jun 02, 2005 at 07:04 UTC
I tend to use Log::Log4perl with CGI:Application because it's what I used before discovering CGI::App, but if you don't have a preference then CGI::Application::Plugin::LogDispatch may suit.	[reply]
Re: Best way to debug in MVC by perrin (Chancellor) on Jun 02, 2005 at 14:07 UTC
It's no different from debugging anything else -- you take a quick stab with print statements and if that doesn't work you run the debugger. Are you finding it harder to debug under CGI::Application for some reason?	[reply]