NAME

Devel::PDB - A simple Curses-based Perl Debugger

SYNOPSIS

    perl -d:PDB foo.pl

DESCRIPTION

PerlDeBugger is a Curses-based Perl debugger with most of the essential functions such as monitoring windows for paddlist, call stack, custom watch expressions, etc. Suitable for debugging or tracing complicated Perl applications on the spot.

File Help

a.pl:5 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

| use Devel::PDB; |

| #!/usr/bin/perl |

| |

| my $a = test(); |

| print "$a\n"; |

| |

| sub test { |

| my $hey = 10; |

| my $guys_this_is_long = 20; |

| test2(); |

| 2; |

| } |

| |

| sub test2 { |

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Auto -------------------------------- Watch -------------------------------

|$a undef ||- no values - |

| || |

-------------------------------------- --------------------------------------

FUNCTIONS

PerlDeBugger is still in development stage, not all of the planed functions have been implemented yet. Currently it can:

step-over, step-in, step-out, run
set/remove breakpoint
automatic display of lexical variables
add/remove custom watch expression
show/open compiled files

TODO (sorted by priority):

Stack Trace Window
STDOUT/STDERR Window (currently STDOUT and STDERR are redirected to files stdout and stderr in the current directory)
Immediate Window for executing arbitrary perl statement
Load/Save debugger workspace (breakpoints, watch expressions, etc.)

KEYS

Global

F1: Switch to the Source Code Window
F2: Switch to the Lexical Variable Window
F3: Switch to the Watch Window
F5: Continue execution
F6: Step Out
F7: Step In
F8: Step Over
F9: Toggle Breakpoint
F10: Show 'Compiled Files' Dialog
F11: Show 'Opened Files' Dialog
Ctrl+Q: Quit the debugger
Ctrl+W: Add watch expression

Source Code Window

UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT/PAGE UP/PAGE DOWN: Move the cursor
H/J/K/L/Ctrl+F/Ctrl+B: If you use VI, you will know
/: Search using a RegEx in the current opened file
n: Search Next
N: Search Previous
Ctrl+G: Goto a specific line

Lexical Variable Window / Watch Window

UP/DOWN: Move the cursor
ENTER: Show the Data::Dumper output of the highlighted item in a scrollable dialog
DEL: Remove the highlighted expression (Watch Window only)

Compiled File Dialog / Opened File Dialog

TAB: Toggle the focus between the file list and the filter
ENTER: Select the highlighted file or apply the filter to the file list

AUTHOR

Ivan Yat-Cheung Wong <email@ivanwong.info>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.8 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.

CPAN RT