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Rhino

Debug API Changes

Table of contents

  1. Setting and querying a Debugger implementation
  2. Monitoring execution of each line in the script
  3. Breakpoint handling

The main difference between the old and new API is that the application needs to implement both org.mozilla.javascript.debugger.Debugger and org.mozilla.javascript.debugger.DebugFrame interfaces to receive debug information during script execution. See the API documentation for these classes for details:

In addition the org.mozilla.javascript.debugger.DebuggableEngine interface and the getDebuggableEngine method in org.mozilla.javascript.Context are replaced by 3 Context methods: setDebugger, getDebugger and getDebuggerContextData to set/get debugger and its Context data in the current thread Context: org.mozilla.javascript.Context

The following gives few examples how to update your current application to the new API.

Setting and querying a Debugger implementation

Old API:

cx.getDebuggableEngine.setDebugger(debugger);
cx.getDebuggableEngine.getDebugger();

New API:

cx.setDebugger(debugger);
cx.getDebugger();

Monitoring execution of each line in the script

Old implementation:

public MyDebugger implement Debugger {

    public void handleCompilationDone(Context cx,
                                      DebuggableScript fnOrScript,
                                      StringBuffer source)
    {
    }

    void handleBreakpointHit(Context cx)
    {
        DebugFrame frame = cx.getDebuggableEngine().getFrame(0);
        System.out.println("New line:" + frame.getLineNumber());
    }

    void handleExceptionThrown(Context cx, Object exception)
    {
    }
}
...
cx.getDebuggableEngine.setDebugger(new MyDebugger());
cx.getDebuggableEngine.setBreakNextLine(true);

New implementation:

public MyDebugger implement Debugger
{
    public void handleCompilationDone(Context cx,
                                      DebuggableScript fnOrScript,
                                      StringBuffer source)
    {
    }

    public DebugFrame getFrame(Context cx, DebuggableScript fnOrScript)
    {
        return new MyDebugFrame();
    }
}

class MyDebugFrame implements DebugFrame
{
    public void onEnter(Context cx, Scriptable activation,
                        Scriptable thisObj, Object[] args)
    {
    }

    public void onExceptionThrown(Context cx, Throwable ex)
    {
    }

    public void onExit(Context cx, boolean byThrow,
                       Object resultOrException)
    {
    }

    public void onLineChange(Context cx, int lineNumber)
    {
        System.out.println("New line:" + frame.getLineNumber());
    }
}
...
cx.setDebugger(new MyDebugger());

Note the in the new implementation the application can monitor function enter/exit by customizing enterFrame and onExit in the above code.

Breakpoint handling

Old implementation:

public MyDebugger implement Debugger {

    public void handleCompilationDone(Context cx, DebuggableScript fnOrScript,
                                      StringBuffer source)
    {
        int breakpointLine = ...;
        fnOrScript.placeBreakpoint(breakpointLine);
    }

    void handleBreakpointHit(Context cx) {
        DebugFrame frame = cx.getDebuggableEngine().getFrame(0);
        System.out.println("Breakpoint hit: "+frame.getSourceName()+":"+frame.getLineNumber());
    }

    void handleExceptionThrown(Context cx, Object exception)
    {
    }
}
...
cx.getDebuggableEngine.setDebugger(new MyDebugger());

New implementation:

public MyDebugger implement Debugger
{
    public void handleCompilationDone(Context cx,
                                      DebuggableScript fnOrScript,
                                      StringBuffer source)
    {
    }

    public DebugFrame getFrame(Context cx, DebuggableScript fnOrScript)
    {
        return new MyDebugFrame(fnOrScript);
    }
}

class MyDebugFrame implements DebugFrame
{
    DebuggableScript fnOrScript;

    MyDebugFrame(DebuggableScript fnOrScript)
    {
        this.fnOrScript = fnOrScript;
    }

    public void onEnter(Context cx, Scriptable activation,
                        Scriptable thisObj, Object[] args)
    {
    System.out.println("Frame entered");
    }

    public void onLineChange(Context cx, int lineNumber)
    {
        if (isBreakpoint(lineNumber)) {
            System.out.println("Breakpoint hit: "+fnOrScript.getSourceName()+":"+lineNumber);
        }
    }

    public void onExceptionThrown(Context cx, Throwable ex)
    {
    }

    public void onExit(Context cx, boolean byThrow,
                       Object resultOrException)
    {
        System.out.println("Frame exit, result="+resultOrException);
    }

    private boolean isBreakpoint(int lineNumber)
    {
        ...
    }
}
...
cx.setDebugger(new MyDebugger());

Here debugger during execution needs to decide if a particular line has breakpoint on it set or not during script execution, not at the moment of script initialization. See also Rhino Debugger that fully explore the new API. The debugger changes includes support for debugging eval and Function scripts and loading script sources from their URL if debugger was not installed during scripts initialization.