Advanced
ColdFusion Debugging
Tips and Tricks
Bilal Soylu
      CFinNC 2009

Agenda
The Creds
My Definition
Interactive Debugger
FireBug / ColdFire
Offline Debugging
Time: JVM configuration observations

The Creds Slide
CTO Verian Technologies, Inc. (www.verian.com)
ColdFusion since mid 90’s beginning with Version 1.5
Certified Advanced CF Developer
Contributor to Brainbench CF 8 Exam

General Definition
Definition 1
Detection and rectification of deficiencies in a software code that can cause it to crash, behave erratically, or be susceptible to cracker or hacker attack. In some cases it takes more time to debug a program than to write it. See also bug.
Definition 2
Detection and remedying of existing and potential errors in a product or system before its final acceptance or sale.

Why should we care
“All software has bugs…”
“…Debugging the Most Time-Consuming Phase of Software Development Lifecycle…”
(Business Wire)
(StackOverflow.com)

Time
Frustration
Quality of Life ;o)

Debug Space (My Definition)

Detection Categories
Areas
Syntax Errors
Missing attributes, misspelled commands, etc.
Runtime Errors
Exceptions (program ends prematurely etc.)
Logical Errors
Unexpected behaviors
Performance Related
Time / Throughput

Interactive Debugger in LT 7
Step 1: Check CF Configuration
Step 2: Setup CF Eclipse
Step 3: Setup Adobe Extensions
Step 4: Setup Debug Mappings
Step 5: Setup RDS Mappings
Step 6: Configure Debug Perspective

Getting Ready
Installation Prerequisites
Installed CF 8 with RDS enabled
Installed JDK / JRE
Download
Eclipse (3.4 or 3.5)
Download Adobe Extensions

Step 1: ColdFusion side
Enable RDS (wwwroot\WEB-INF\web.xml) & CF Admin
Enable Line Debugging

Step 2: CF Eclipse
Demo
Download and Install CF Eclipse (http://www.cfeclipse.org/update)

Step 3: CF Extensions for Ecplipse
Set Perspectives
Set Workspace to webroot
Add Adobe Extensions

Step 4: Add Debug Mappings
Test configuration / Test Debugger

Step 5: Add RDS config
Open Prefs
Click Adobe Node
Verify Conn and Debug

Step 6: Set Debug Perspective
Add initial Debug Config

Run Examples
Single Template
Custom Tag
Component
Caveats

Setup Firebug in LT 6
Step 1: Download and Install FireFox (3.5)
Step 2: Install Firebug Extension
Step 3: Download ColdFire
Step 4: Install ColdFire Extension to FF
Step 5: Install ColdFire Extension to CF
Enjoy !

Step 2: Installing FireBug/ColdFire in FF
Usage Sample

Step 5: Install ColdFire extension for CF

Step 5b – Switch CF Debug Format

Logging and Try / Catch
Try/catch requires that you log your errors manually

Offline Debug in 1
What happens when you are not there?
Debugging to File system (CF temp directory) using GetTempDirectory(),
e.g. [root]\runtime\servers\coldfusion\SERVER-INF\temp\wwwroot-tmp\
Flags
To Hide: DebugSilent
<cfset DebugSilent=True>
URL
FORM
To Restrict to Error: DebugOnlyErrorToFile
Indicate Error in File Naming
Caveats:
Extra overhead
File system needs monitoring

Q&A
Contact
bilal.soylu@gmail.com
Blog
BonCode.blogspot.com

JVM Config Observations
Playing with JVM
GC Settings
Memory
The defaults
Memory max 512MB
-XX:+UseParallelGC
Experiments
-XX:PermSize=96m
–Xmx1024m
-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC
Profile JVM memory use before finalizing

Using Service Capture
Alternative to Firebug (http://www.kevinlangdon.com/serviceCapture/)
Especially useful with Flex (AMF traffic decoding)
http://[myexample]/flex/DownloadExample1/ShippingDemo.mxml