NAME Plack::Middleware::Debug - display information about the current request/response SYNOPSIS # app.psgi use Plack::Builder; my $app = sub { return [ 200, [ 'Content-Type' => 'text/html' ], [ 'Hello World' ] ]; }; builder { enable 'Debug'; $app; }; DESCRIPTION The debug middleware offers a configurable set of panels that displays information about the current request and response. The information is generated only for responses with a status of 200 ("OK") and a "Content-Type" that contains "text/html" and is embedded in the HTML that is sent back to the browser. Also the code is injected directly before the "" tag so if there is no such tag, the information will not be injected. To enable the middleware, just use Plack::Builder as usual in your ".psgi" file: use Plack::Builder; builder { enable 'Debug', panels => [ qw(DBITrace PerlConfig) ]; $app; }; The "Debug" middleware takes an optional "panels" argument whose value is expected to be a reference to an array of panel specifications. If given, only those panels will be enabled. If you don't pass a "panels" argument, the default list of panels - "Environment", "Response", "Timer" and "Memory" - will be enabled, each with their default settings. Each panel specification can take one of three forms: A string This is interpreted as the base name of a panel in the "Plack::Middeware::Debug::" namespace. The panel class is loaded and a panel object is created with its default settings. An array reference If you need to pass arguments to the panel object as it is created, use this form. The first element of the array reference has to be the panel base name. The remaining elements are key/value pairs to be passed to the panel. Not all panels take extra arguments. But the "DBITrace" panel, for example, takes an optional "level" argument to specify the desired trace level. For example: builder { enable 'Debug', panels => [ qw(Environment Response Timer Memory), [ 'DBITrace', level => 2 ] ]; $app; }; An object You can also pass panel objects directly to the "Debug" middleware. This might be useful if you have custom debug panels in your framework or web application. PANELS "DBITrace" Display DBI trace information. See Plack::Middleware::Debug::DBITrace. "Environment" Displays the PSGI environment from the request. See Plack::Middleware::Debug::Environment. "Memory" Displays memory usage before the request and after the response. See Plack::Middleware::Debug::Memory. "ModuleVersions" Displays the loaded modules and their versions. See Plack::Middleware::Debug::ModuleVersions. "PerlConfig" Displays the configuration information of the Perl interpreter itself. See Plack::Middleware::Debug::PerlConfig "Response" Displays the status code and response headers. See Plack::Middleware::Debug::Response. "Timer" Displays how long the request took. See Plack::Middleware::Debug::Timer. "CatalystLog" In a Catalyst application, this panel displays the Catalyst log output. See Plack::Middleware::Debug::CatalystLog. HOW TO WRITE YOUR OWN DEBUG PANEL The "Debug" middleware is designed to be easily extensible. You might want to write a custom debug panel for your framework or for your web application. Let's look at the anatomy of the "Timer" debug panel. Here is the code from that panel: package Plack::Middleware::Debug::Timer; use 5.008; use strict; use warnings; use Time::HiRes qw(gettimeofday tv_interval); use Plack::Util::Accessor qw(start_time elapsed); use parent qw(Plack::Middleware::Debug::Base); our $VERSION = '0.03'; sub nav_subtitle { my $self = shift; $self->format_elapsed; } sub format_elapsed { my $self = shift; sprintf '%s s', $self->elapsed; } sub format_time { my ($self, $time) = @_; my ($sec, $min, $hour, $mday, $mon, $year) = (localtime($time->[0])); sprintf "%04d.%02d.%02d %02d:%02d:%02d.%d", $year + 1900, $mon + 1, $mday, $hour, $min, $sec, $time->[1]; } sub process_request { my ($self, $env) = @_; $self->start_time([gettimeofday]); } sub process_response { my ($self, $res, $env) = @_; my $end_time = [gettimeofday]; $self->elapsed(tv_interval $self->start_time, $end_time); $self->content( $self->render_list_pairs( [ Start => $self->format_time($self->start_time), End => $self->format_time($end_time), Elapsed => $self->format_elapsed, ] ) ); } To write a new debug panel, place it in the "Plack::Middleware::Debug::" namespace. In our example, the "Timer" panel lives in the "Plack::Middleware::Debug::Timer" package. A panel should subclass Plack::Middleware::Debug::Base. It provides a lot of methods that the "Debug" middleware expects a panel to have and provides some sensible defaults for others, so you only need to override what is specific to your custom panel. The panels' title - which appears at the top left when the panel is active - and its navigation title - which appears in the navigation bar on the right side - are set automatically from the panel's base name - "Timer" in our case. This is a useful for default for us, so we don't need to override these methods. The panels' navigation subtitle, which appears in the navigation bar underneath the panel title in smaller letters, is empty by default. For the "Timer" panel, we would like to show the total time elapsed so the user can get the quick overview without having to activate the panel. So we override the "nav_subtitle()" method. How do we know how much time elapsed for the request? We have to take the time when the request comes in, and again when the response goes out. So we override the "process_request()" and "process_response()" methods. In "process_request()" we just store the current time. To generate the accessors for any attributes our panel might need we use Plack::Util::Accessor. In "process_response()" we take the time again, determine how much time has elapsed, store that information in an accessor so "sub_navtitle()" can return it when asked by the template, then we actually render the template with our data and store it in "content()". When the HTML, CSS and JavaScript are generated and injected by the "Debug" middleware, it will ask all panels whether they have any content. If so, the actual panel is generated. If not, then just an inactive navigation bar entry is generated. Having data in the panel's "content" attribute is the sign that the "Debug" middleware looks for. In our "Timer" example we want to list three key/value pairs: the start time, the end time and the elapsed time. We use the "render_list_pairs()" method to place the pairs in the order we want. There is also a "render_hash()" method, but it would sort the hash keys, and this is not what we want. With this our "Timer" debug panel is finished. Now we can use it in the "enable 'Debug'" call like any other debug panel. BUGS AND LIMITATIONS No bugs have been reported. Please report any bugs or feature requests through the web interface at . INSTALLATION See perlmodinstall for information and options on installing Perl modules. AVAILABILITY The latest version of this module is available from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN). Visit to find a CPAN site near you. Or see . The development version lives at . Instead of sending patches, please fork this project using the standard git and github infrastructure. AUTHORS Marcel Grünauer, "" Tatsuhiko Miyagawa, "" COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE Copyright 2009 by Marcel Grünauer This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. SEE ALSO The debug middleware is heavily influenced (that is, adapted from) the Django Debug Toolbar - see .