CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaeclipsedebugging
Vala
Vala

Reputation: 5674

Is there a way to search the variables available at the current place in the stack during remote debugging?

I'm remote debugging a Java application and (not for the first time) I find myself looking for a value without knowing what variable might hold it (if any at all). This is especially hard to find since I'm stepping through library code rather than my own code, so I was wondering; since eclipse can display the variables currently available on the stack, along with all contained values, is there any way I can search these? Or at the very least dump it out as text somewhere and grep it or something.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 116

Answers (3)

Ostap
Ostap

Reputation: 320

I usually do an export to JSON using Jackson's ObjectMapper whenever I find myself into the situation of having to search among a bunch of values caught while debugging. On breakpoint hit, let's say I want to search some string inside a text representation of myObj, which could be some messy POJO deep with nested objects. Just evaluate the following:

org.codehaus.jackson.map.ObjectMapper mapper = new org.codehaus.jackson.map.ObjectMapper();
mapper.writeValue(new java.io.File("/tmp/myObj.json"), myObj);

and then go grep your value inside the file you just created. YMMV: if you have no idea where to start the search you'll have to iterate through what's available on the stack. Also the JSON representation might not be suitable for every kind of search.

Upvotes: 1

lucrussell
lucrussell

Reputation: 5160

You could try evars. I haven't tried the search function, but it allows expanding and exporting all the variables on the stack to a file, which you can then grep for your value. I installed the latest version into Eclipse manually, i.e. putting the jar in the dropins/plugins directory. Worked for me on Eclipse 3.6.1.

Upvotes: 1

BenG
BenG

Reputation: 130

I'm not sure about the feature you are asking for but there is another approach you could take. Assuming you know the general area AND the object you are looking for isn't too common, eclipse supports conditional breakpoints so you could set breakpoints on the end of methods chechking the method variables and object state.

Upvotes: 1

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