Laravel Project Debugging Techniques

Debugging Laravel packages involves several techniques and tools, similar to debugging any other part of a Laravel application.

1. Laravel Debugbar:

Installation: Install the barryvdh/laravel-debugbar package using Composer:

    composer require barryvdh/laravel-debugbar --dev

Usage:

Enable Debugbar in your .env file (APP_DEBUG=true). The Debugbar will appear at the bottom of your browser window in development. It provides insights into requests, queries, views, and more.
Logging:

Use Debugbar::info(), Debugbar::error(), etc., to log custom messages and variables to the Debugbar's messages tab.

2. dd() and dump():

dd() (dump and die): This function outputs the contents of a variable and halts script execution. It is useful for quickly inspecting variables at a specific point in the package's code.

Code

    dd($variable);

dump(): Similar to dd(), but it does not halt execution, allowing the script to continue. The output appears in the browser or terminal.

Code

    dump($variable);

3. XDebug:

Installation and Configuration:

Install XDebug for your PHP environment and configure it to work with your IDE (e.g., VS Code). This typically involves setting up a launch.json file in VS Code and ensuring the XDebug port matches your configuration.
Breakpoints:

XDebug allows you to set breakpoints within your package's code. When execution reaches a breakpoint, it pauses, allowing you to inspect variables, step through the code line by line, and understand the flow.

4. Logging:

Laravel's Log Facade: Utilize Laravel's built-in logging system to write messages and variable values to the log files (typically storage/logs). This is helpful for tracing execution flow and identifying issues in a non-interactive manner.

Code

    use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Log;

    Log::info('Debugging package functionality.', ['data' => $someData]);

5. Ray Desktop Debugging:

Installation:

Install the Ray desktop application and the spatie/laravel-ray package in your Laravel project.
Usage:

Ray allows you to send data from your application to the desktop app for inspection. It offers a more structured and interactive way to debug than simple dump() calls, especially for complex objects and arrays.

Code

    ray($variable);
    ray()->mailable(new MyMailable()); // Example for mailables

6. Collection Debugging:

When working with Laravel Collections within a package, chain dump() calls after each collection method to inspect the intermediate results at each step of the chain.

Code

    $collection->filter(...)
               ->dump() // Inspect after filter
               ->map(...)
               ->dump() // Inspect after map
               ->get();