Debugging workaround

[mmccthomas]

Has anybody found a workaround for the limited debugging options in Pythonista.
Breakpoints can only be set in the top level module, not in any lower levels.
Hence, to establish values of parameters at lower levels, I either need to single step down through levels and loops, or set up logging points in the sub module.
I would like to set a breakpoint, possibly conditional, within a lower module and stop there, with full inspection of values.
Could this be achieved with pdb, and can it link to the inbuilt Pythonista debug popup?

[RichardPotthoff]

I had the same problem in the past, and I had the same solution: Single step.
I just asked Grog for advice, and it had a few promising suggestions, one of the suggestions was using the built-in dbg framework.
I have never used "dbg", but apparently you can set breakpoints at any line in any file using the "b" command:

(Pdb) b /var/containers/.../Pythonista3/Documents/.../somemodule.py:123
# or more conveniently (if the module is already imported):
(Pdb) b mymodule.my_function
(Pdb) b ui.View.draw          # works for many built-in modules too

Here is my full conversation with Grok about the problem:
Grok?Pythonista debugging with pdb
I do not have a problem I could use to try it out. May be you find something in my conversation with Grok that solves your current problem.

[mmccthomas]

Thanks Richard, I’ll have a look.
My projects are now fairly large and deep, so navigating from top level downwards is tricky at best.
I end up abusing list comprehensions just to allow stepping over loops.
Debugging inside Scene loops is tricky also,
I’ve managed so far, but it would be nice if someone (or Ole) had a nice module.

What a great conversation with Grok. I’m sorely tempted to create a Tableview UI to clone what the inbuilt debugger performs. I’ve played with the guts of the inspector module in a previous life. Might be interesting.

On another subject, did you ever see a beta of Pythonista 3.5? I would love to know what’s the progress on this. Ole has gone quiet again of late.

[mmccthomas]

Digging around a little further reveals https://github.com/jsbain/vdb/
repository in response to earlier questions.

it needed a few Python2 - 3 changes, but once installed and called with
import vdb
vdb.set_trace()
Provides a minimal debug icons with step_over, step_into and inspect locals and globals

I’ll see how it goes.