Cant expand/inspect objects in Watch but can in Variables

[nickchomey]

I'm creating a new issue here to follow-on from a comment I made on this closed issue: #52

I can drill-down into objects in the Variables pane, but not in Watch. I can't expand $bp->data and trying to watch that directly just returns null.

PHP version: 7.4.29
Xdebug version: 3.1.4
VS Code extension version: 1.25.0

Your launch.json:

"version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Listen for Xdebug",
            "type": "php",
            "request": "launch",
            "port": 9003,
            "maxConnections": 1
        },
}

Xdebug php.ini config:

<style> </style>

DBGp Settings
Max Children	32
Max Data	1024
Max Depth	1
Show Hidden Properties	No
Extended Properties	No
Notifications	No
Resolved Breakpoints	No
Breakpoint Details	No
PHP
Build Configuration
Version (Run Time)	7.4.29
Version (Compile Time)	7.4.3
Debug Build	no
Thread Safety	disabled
Directive	Local Value
xdebug.mode	debug, develop
xdebug.start_with_request	trigger
xdebug.start_upon_error	default
xdebug.use_compression	1
xdebug.file_link_format	no value
xdebug.filename_format	no value
xdebug.log	no value
xdebug.log_level	7
xdebug.var_display_max_children	-1
xdebug.var_display_max_data	-1
xdebug.var_display_max_depth	-1
xdebug.max_nesting_level	256
xdebug.cli_color	0
xdebug.force_display_errors	Off
xdebug.force_error_reporting	0
xdebug.halt_level	0
xdebug.max_stack_frames	-1
xdebug.show_error_trace	Off
xdebug.show_exception_trace	Off
xdebug.show_local_vars	Off
xdebug.dump.COOKIE	no value
xdebug.dump.ENV	no value
xdebug.dump.FILES	no value
xdebug.dump.GET	no value
xdebug.dump.POST	no value
xdebug.dump.REQUEST	no value
xdebug.dump.SERVER	no value
xdebug.dump.SESSION	no value
xdebug.dump_globals	On
xdebug.dump_once	On
xdebug.dump_undefined	Off
xdebug.profiler_append	Off
xdebug.cloud_id	no value
xdebug.client_host	localhost
xdebug.client_port	9003
xdebug.discover_client_host	Off
xdebug.client_discovery_header	no value
xdebug.idekey	no value
xdebug.connect_timeout_ms	200
xdebug.scream	Off
xdebug.gc_stats_output_name	gcstats.%p
xdebug.trace_output_name	trace.%c
xdebug.trace_format	0
xdebug.trace_options	0
xdebug.collect_assignments	Off
xdebug.collect_return	Off

Xdebug logfile (from setting xdebug.log in php.ini): I cant create one - level 7 doesnt show anything relevant and level 10 creates an 8GB file.

VS Code extension logfile (from setting "log": true in launch.json):
phpdebuglog.txt

Code snippet to reproduce:

In my case need to install buddypress, but I suspect it happens for any object.

[zobo]

Thanks for the report. I'll look at it asap

[nickchomey]

I just discovered the xdebug settings parameters for launch.json. When I set max depth to a higher number, I can then expand $bp. However, I still can't see $bp->data in the Watch panel. I tried making max_data extremely high (thinking perhaps it had run out of space) but that didn't help

"xdebugSettings": {
    "max_depth": 2,
    "max_children": 1000,
    "max_data": 10000000
},

I'm glad to have found this because it also solves my issue with the children being limited. I'll explore the other settings as well. But the $bp->data issue seems worth investigating. Though, your documentation says this about max_depth (there should be no need to change this as depth is retrieved incrementally, large value can cause IDE to hang).. Does that mean it should automatically be setting its depth? If so, that's worth looking into as well

Thanks!

[zobo]

Hi!

Regarding drill down. The Watch pane currently uses eval to retrieve the variable value. The sad side effect here is that drill down isn't available directly. Increasing max_depth is one way around this, another is something I have implemented in the Inspect window (Debug Console). I will probably extend the Watch implementation too.

Regarding the $bp->data issue, I looked at the dump and here is what I see:

When the variable is inspected this is a small part of the response:

<property name="data" facet="private" type="array" children="1" numchildren="67">

I see here that this is a private field and so evaluating $bp->data should indeed return null.

A way around this would be to change the internal logic of Watch, so that it would try to use propery_get insted of eval. I am already doing this for Hover and it's already causing issues in some edge cases. See #742 (comment)

Indeed you can write anything in the Watch pane, so the logic would need to be really smart on when to use property_get and when eval.

I will have a look at it.

I, sadly, don't have a solution for you at the moment - aside from changing the property to public...

[nickchomey]

Thanks very much for looking into this so quickly! That all makes sense. I think my problem is largely solved just from changing the max_depth setting - I can very easily just watch $bp and then drill down into $bp->data from there. So, don't put any more effort into this unless you think that it might be relevant to broader changes that you already have in mind.

Thanks again!