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NAME

Vim::Debug::Manual - Integrate the Perl debugger with Vim

What is VimDebug?

VimDebug integrates the Perl debugger with Vim, allowing developers to visually step through their code, examine variables, set or clear breakpoints, etc.

VimDebug is known to work under Unix/Ubuntu/OSX. It requires Perl 5.FIXME or later and some CPAN modules may need to be installed. It also requires Vim 7.FIXME or later that was built with the +signs and +perl extensions.

How do I install VimDebug?

VimDebug has a Perl component and a Vim component. To install the Perl libraries use cpanm:

    # install cpanm
    curl -L http://cpanmin.us | perl - --sudo App::cpanminus

    # install VimDebug Perl libraries
    cpanm Vim::Debug

Next, install the Vim component:

    vimdebug-install -d ~/.vim

You may want to replace ~/.vim by some other directory that your Vim recognizes as a runtimepath directory. See Vim's ":help 'runtimepath'" for more information.

Using VimDebug

Launch Vim and open a file named with a ".pl" extension. Press <F12> to start the debugger. To change the default Vim key bindings, shown here, edit VimDebug.vim:

    <F12>      Start the debugger
    <Leader>s/ Start the debugger.  Prompts for command line arguments.
    <F10>      Restart debugger. Break points are ALWAYS saved (for all dbgrs).
    <F11>      Exit the debugger

    <F6>       Next
    <F7>       Step
    <F8>       Continue

    <Leader>b  Set break point on the current line
    <Leader>c  Clear break point on the current line

    <Leader>v  Print the value of the variable under the cursor
    <Leader>v/ Print the value of an expression thats entered

    <Leader>/  Type a command for the debugger to execute and echo the result

Improving VimDebug

VimDebug is on github: https://github.com/kablamo/VimDebug.git

To do development work on VimDebug, clone its git repo and read ./documentation/DEVELOPER.HOWOTO.

In principle, the VimDebug code can be extended to handle other debuggers, like the one for Ruby or Python, but that remains to be done.

Please note that this code is in beta.

AUTHOR

Eric Johnson <kablamo at iijo dot nospamthanks dot org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2013 by Eric Johnson.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.