HOW-TO:Debug Python Scripts with Web-PDB

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Revision as of 13:38, 21 May 2017 by Roman V M (talk | contribs)
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Web-PDB is a remote web-interface to Python's built-in PDB debugger with additional convenience features. It is not tied to any IDE or other software, all you need is a common web-browser, e.g. Chrome or Firefox.

Web-PDB for Kodi is available as an addon in the official Kodi addons repo.

How To Use Web-PDB for Kodi

1. Install Web-PDB addon: Kodi Add-on repository > Program add-ons > Web-PDB.

2. Add script.module.web-pdb to addon.xml as a dependency:

<requires>
  ...
  <import addon="script.module.web-pdb" />
<requires>

3. Insert the following line into your addon code at the point where you want to start debugging:

import web_pdb; web_pdb.set_trace()

The set_trace() call will suspend your addon and open a web-UI at the default port 5555 (port value can be changed). At the same time a notification will be displayed in Kodi, indicating that a debug session is active. The notification also shows web-UI host/port.

4. Enter in your the address bar of your browser: http://<your Kodi machine hostname or IP>:5555, for example http://monty-python:5555. Use localhost as a hostname if you are connecting from the same machine that runs Kodi. If everything is OK, you should see the Web-PDB UI. Now you can use all PDB commands and features. Additional Current file, Globals and Locals information boxes help you better track your program runtime state.

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