source: trunk/docs/services/debug.txt @ 415

.. _services-debug:

How To Debug ZOO Services
=========================

:Authors: Luca Delucchi
:Last Updated: $Date: 2013-03-27 00:06:12 +0100 (Wed, 27 Mar 2013) $

There are different ways to debug your services, the most used solutions are via web
or via command line.

Web
----

Using the web request you can see any problem with the log file of Apache.

On Unix system usually to log file is in ``/var/log/apache2`` and the useful file
is ``error_log``. A simple way to look inside the file is to use ``tail`` command,
it permits to see the update of the file for each request ::

  tail -f /var/log/apache2/error_log

If the log is not so clear you can add some information inside your code. You have to write
in the standard error.

Python
********
Using Python for example you can do this

.. code-block:: python

  import sys
  
  #add this line when you want see your message
  sys.stderr.write("My message")

.. _web_javascript:

Javascript
************

You can user ``alert`` to print a string to the standard error.

.. code-block:: javascript

  // add this line when you want see your message
  alert('My message')
  // you can debug value of inputs, outputs or conf
  alert(inputs["S"]["value"])

.. note:: If you try to pass an object it return only ``[object Object]``

Command line
--------------

It is possible to use the ZOO kernel ``zoo_loader.cgi`` also from command line.
This is really useful to debug in a deeper way your service.

.. code-block:: bash

  # to use it you have to copy test_service.py and HelloPy.zcfg from
  # the example services
  ./zoo_loader.cgi "service=wps&version=1.0.0&request=execute&identifier=HelloPy&datainputs=a=your name&responsedocument=Result"

Using this way you can use standard debug system of the programming language used
in your service.

GDB
*****
From command line you can use also the command line tool `GDB <http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/>`_
to debug ``zoo_loader.cgi``, you have to run

.. code-block:: bash

  # launch zoo_loader.cgi from gdb
  gdb zoo_loader.cgi
  # now run your request
  run "service=wps&version=1.0.0&request=execute&identifier=HelloPy&datainputs=a=your name&responsedocument=Result"

At this point you can ask help to the `ZOO mailing list <http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/zoo-discuss>`_
copying the result of the command.

Python
**********
For Python you can use ``pdb``, more info at http://docs.python.org/2/library/pdb.html

.. code-block:: python

  import pdb
  
  # add this line when you want investigate more in the code
  pdb.set_trace()

Javascript
************

You can use ``alert`` also to print in the console, more info in the :ref:`web_javascript` web section