Debugging

Often, when troubleshooting a more complex app you'll seek to answer some of these questions:

• Which events are firing?
• In which order did they fire?
• How long did my event take to update app db (state)?
• What did my app db (state) look like before & after an event?

Logging

We can manually add some logging statements in our event handlers for example:

(rd/reg-event-db
   ::count
   (fn [db _]
     (dart:core/print (str "db before value: " db))       ;; <== This
     (let [new-db (update db :current-count inc)]
       (dart:core/print (str "db after value: " new-db))  ;; <== This
       new-db)))

This is cumbersome, error prone, and involve quite a bit of refactoring. There is an easier way..

The debug Interceptor

Taking inspiration from re-frame we also have a built in debug interceptor at our disposal in re-dash

Usage

(rd/reg-event-db
   ::count
   [(rd/debug)]          ;; <== Add the built-in debug interceptor
   (fn [db _]
     (update db :current-count (fnil inc 0))))

Console Output

###############################################
### Event: :acme.model/count
-----------------------------------------------
### DB Diff Before (Removed):
{}
-----------------------------------------------
### DB Diff After (Added):
{:current-count 1}
###############################################

Options

Providing an options map we can add / remove some logging detail:

• :args? Default false. Include the arguments passed to the event when it was dispatched.
• :diff? Default true. Include the 1st two elements from the clojure.data/diff tuple.
  • The DB diff before the app db was updated (the data that's been removed/changed by the event)
  • The DB diff after the app db was updated (the data that's been added/changed by the event)
• :stats? Default false. Include basic timed statistics for the event execution.
• :target Default :target/console. Logging target, one of
  • :target/console - Standard out
  • :target/dev-tools - Send to the re-dash-inspector
  • :target/everywhere - Send to both console and the re-dash-inspector

With all the options enabled:

(rd/debug {:args? true :diff? true :stats? true})

and the event dispatched with an argument for example:

(rd/dispatch [::model/count 1])

the console output will be:

###############################################
### Event: :acme.model/count
### Started  : 2023-11-18 14:43:23.283354
### Finished : 2023-11-18 14:43:23.289723
### Duration : 0:00:00.006369
-----------------------------------------------
### Event Args:
1
-----------------------------------------------
### DB Diff Before (Removed):
{}
-----------------------------------------------
### DB Diff After (Added):
{:current-count 1}
###############################################

if we want to keep the logging minimal, disabling all the options will merely print the event id:

Event: :acme.model/count

Global debugging

We can get a global view of what events are running in our program by registering debug as a global interceptor for example:

Add this somewhere early on in your app's startup, like in main

(rd/reg-global-interceptor
  (rd/debug))

Performance

The debug interceptor will only do anything when the app is running in debug mode, ie. kDebugMode has to be true.

When the target is :target/dev-tools the re-dash-inspector has to have an active connection to re-dash before events will be sent.

If neither of the above is true, the debug interceptor is effectively a no-op & will have no impact on app performance.