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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.

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

SEE ALSO

perldebug

AUTHOR

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

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2007 by Ivan Y.C. Wong 黃溢章

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.

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