Local Variables vs. Instance Variables inside breakpointer

Rails
1

Hi,

I have a quick question about breakpoints. I am testing a class method
inside a model in development mode and when I get to the breakpoint, I
can’t seem to inspect any of the local variables inside the method.
Here is what the code looks like:

class User
self.register(params,options)
@user = User.new(params[:user])
user = User.new(params[:user])
if options
# do stuff
breakpoint
else
# do other stuff
end
end
end

I can inspect the instance variable just fine, but
if I try to inspect the ‘user’ local variable or params or options I
get the following exception:
ameError: undefined local variable or method user' for User:Class from (druby://localhost:42531) /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.4/lib/active_record/base.rb:1129:inmethod_missing’
from (druby://localhost:42531) (irb):1:in `breakpoint’

I noticed the same thing happens in unit tests as well. Any ideas?

I am using rails 1.1.6 and ruby 1.8.5

Thanks,
Curtis

2

I worked around this by upgrading to using ruby-debug within my rails
app. It’s quite nice for someone who likes gdb! Still wondering why
breakpoint didn’t happen to work otherwise though.

3

I am experiencing the same issue as you, I can see instance but not
local variables. However, it only acts this way on two different
machines. On one machine with Rails installed via the Gem install I CAN
see local variables but on another machine with a Rails install done
via the SysAdmin(s) I can NOT see local variables (one could almost
imagine the situation being reversed - a custom install of Rails
would have local variable visibility because it might be the version
you ended up using - ruby-debug). But this isnt the case.

Did you make any further progress on this w/o having to resort to
ruby-debug?

thanks.

4

On Thursday 09 November 2006 17:14, Wiliam Langshaw wrote:

Did you make any further progress on this w/o having to resort to
ruby-debug?

breakpoint(er) relies on Binding.of_caller which was broken by Ruby
1.8.5. Without this method, there’s no (easy, fast) way to access the
local variables of the caller.

Michael

–
Michael S.
mailto:[email protected]
http://www.schuerig.de/michael/