{"id":11829,"date":"2015-10-15T11:43:32","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T15:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webdevstudios.com\/?p=11829"},"modified":"2024-04-15T12:03:32","modified_gmt":"2024-04-15T16:03:32","slug":"debugging-wordpress-tips-snippets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webdevstudios.com\/2015\/10\/15\/debugging-wordpress-tips-snippets\/","title":{"rendered":"Debugging WordPress Tips and Snippets"},"content":{"rendered":"
Most developers know of the common WP_DEBUG<\/code> in the config file, but some don’t know there\u00a0are\u00a0way\u00a0more possibilities with WordPress and PHP in general. In this article, I’m going to show you some tips and tricks that I use when debugging WordPress plugins and themes.<\/div>\n
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The Basics<\/h3>\n

Like I said, WP_DEBUG is the common debug flag we use when working with WordPress. You normally see something like this in the wp-config file define( 'WP_DEBUG', 'true' );<\/code> This is what’s called a constant; it’s accessible anywhere from within WordPress itself. I, personally, use a more robust debug log, like so:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t
define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );\nif ( WP_DEBUG ) {\n    define ('JETPACK_DEV_DEBUG', true );\n    define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );\n    define( 'SCRIPT_DEBUG', true );\n\n    if ( defined( 'DOING_AJAX' ) && DOING_AJAX || defined( 'DOING_CRON' ) && DOING_CRON ) {\n        define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false );\n        @ini_set( 'display_errors', 0 );\n    } else {\n        define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', true );\n    }\n}<\/pre>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n
I know, it’s a lot to take in! So let’s break it down, shall we?<\/p>\n
Jetpack Debug<\/h4>\n
One notable constant you’ll see in this snippet is define( 'JETPACK_DEV_DEBUG', true );<\/code> This constant sets Jetpack into debug mode in your development environment. If your project doesn’t use Jetpack, you may not need this one, but Jetpack is a daily thing so I always have it.<\/p>\n
Logging<\/h4>\n
The next is WP_DEBUG_LOG<\/code>, this is an absolute MUST if you are debugging in WordPress. What this does is provide a debug.log file in your \/wp-content\/<\/code> directory for you to read. What I like to do, since I have more than one monitor, is to open a terminal and dedicate one monitor to the debug file. To do this, if you’re not familiar, you can tail the file like so: tail -f wp-content\/debug.log<\/code> this will stream the file to your terminal. Every time a new error shows up, you’ll see it.<\/p>\n
If you’re new to the command line, and have a Mac, a simple process you can follow is:<\/p>\n