debugprint
is a NeoVim plugin that simplifies debugging for those who prefer a
low-tech approach. Instead of using a sophisticated debugger like
nvim-dap, some people prefer using a
'print' statement to trace the output during execution. With debugprint
, you
can insert 'print' statements, with debug information pre-populated, relevant to
the language you're editing. These statements can include variable values.
debugprint
supports 30 filetypes/programming languages out-of-the-box,
including Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, C/C and more. See the
comparison table for the full list. It
can also be extended to support other languages.
debugprint
is inspired by
vim-debugstring; updated for
the NeoVim generation. It:
-
Includes reference information in each 'print line' such as file names, line numbers, a counter, and snippets of other lines to make it easier to cross-reference them in output.
-
Can output the value of variables (or in some cases, expressions).
-
Can detect a Treesitter variable name under the cursor for some languages, or will prompt with a sensible default. It understands Treesitter embedded languages (e.g. JavaScript-in-HTML).
-
Provides keymappings for normal, visual, and operator-pending modes.
-
Provides commands to delete debugging lines added to the current buffer or comment/uncomment those lines.
-
Can optionally move to the inserted line (or not).
-
Can be extended to add support for languages it doesn't support out of the box, or customize languages already supported (some ideas for this are show in the showcase).
-
Is MIT Licensed.
211196425-2b371442-54f9-43d7-9187-a29185d43586.mp4
Requires NeoVim 0.9 .
Example for lazy.nvim
:
return {
"andrewferrier/debugprint.nvim",
-- opts = { … },
dependencies = {
"echasnovski/mini.nvim" -- Needed for :ToggleCommentDebugPrints (not needed for NeoVim 0.10 )
},
}
Example for packer.nvim
:
packer.startup(function(use)
…
use({
"andrewferrier/debugprint.nvim",
config = function()
opts = { … }
require("debugprint").setup(opts)
end,
requires = {
"echasnovski/mini.nvim" -- Needed for :ToggleCommentDebugPrints (not needed for NeoVim 0.10 )
}
})
…
end)
The sections below detail the allowed options that can appear in the opts
object.
There is a showcase of example debugprint configurations here which can be dropped into your configuration files to further enhance your use of debugprint.
Please subscribe to this GitHub
issue to be
notified of any breaking changes to debugprint
.
By default, the plugin will create some keymappings and commands for use 'out of the box'. There are also some function invocations which are not mapped to any keymappings or commands by default, but could be. This is all shown in the following table.
Mode | Default Key / Cmd | Purpose | Above/Below Line |
---|---|---|---|
Normal | g?p |
Plain debug | Below |
Normal | g?P |
Plain debug | Above |
Normal | g?v |
Variable debug | Below |
Normal | g?V |
Variable debug | Above |
Normal | None | Variable debug (always prompt for variable) | Below |
Normal | None | Variable debug (always prompt for variable) | Above |
Normal | None | Delete debug lines in buffer | - |
Normal | None | Comment/uncomment debug lines in buffer | - |
Visual | g?v |
Variable debug | Below |
Visual | g?V |
Variable debug | Above |
Op-pending | g?o |
Variable debug | Below |
Op-pending | g?O |
Variable debug | Above |
Command | :DeleteDebugPrints |
Delete debug lines in buffer | - |
Command | :ToggleCommentDebugPrints |
Comment/uncomment debug lines in buffer | - |
The keys and commands outlined above can be specifically overridden using the
keymaps
and commands
objects inside the opts
object used above during
configuration of debugprint. For example, if configuring via lazy.nvim
, it
might look like this:
return {
"andrewferrier/debugprint.nvim",
opts = {
keymaps = {
normal = {
plain_below = "g?p",
plain_above = "g?P",
variable_below = "g?v",
variable_above = "g?V",
variable_below_alwaysprompt = nil,
variable_above_alwaysprompt = nil,
textobj_below = "g?o",
textobj_above = "g?O",
toggle_comment_debug_prints = nil,
delete_debug_prints = nil,
},
visual = {
variable_below = "g?v",
variable_above = "g?V",
},
},
commands = {
toggle_comment_debug_prints = "ToggleCommentDebugPrints",
delete_debug_prints = "DeleteDebugPrints",
},
},
}
You only need to include the keys / commands which you wish to override, others
will default as shown above. Setting any key or command to nil
will skip it.
The default keymappings are chosen specifically because ordinarily in NeoVim they are used to convert sections to ROT-13, which most folks don't use.
Note: as of version 2.0.0, the old mechanism of configuring keymaps/commands
which specifically allowed for mapping directly to
require('debugprint').debugprint(...)
is no longer officially supported or
documented. This is primarily because of confusion which arose over how to do
this mapping. Existing mappings performed this way are likely to continue to
work for some time. You should, however, migrate over to the new method outlined
above. If this doesn't give you the flexibility to map how you wish for some
reason, please open an
issue.
debugprint
supports the following options in its global opts
object:
Option | Default | Purpose |
---|---|---|
move_to_debugline |
false |
When adding a debug line, moves the cursor to that line |
display_counter |
true |
Whether to display/include the increasing integer counter in each debug message. Can also be set to a function to customize, see below |
display_snippet |
true |
Whether to include a snippet of the line above/below in plain debug lines |
filetypes |
See below | Custom filetypes - see below |
print_tag |
DEBUGPRINT |
The string inserted into each print statement, which can be used to uniquely identify statements inserted by debugprint . |
display_counter
can also be set to a custom callback function to implement
custom counter logic. In this case you are responsible for implementing your own
counter. For example, this logic will implement essentially the same as the
default counter:
local counter = 0
local counter_func = function()
counter = counter 1
return '[' .. tostring(counter) .. ']'
end
debugprint.setup({display_counter = counter_func})
Note: If you work out a configuration for a filetype not supported
out-of-the-box, it would be appreciated if you can open an
issue to have it
supported out-of-the-box in debugprint
so others can benefit. Similarly, if
you spot any issues with, or improvements to, the language configurations
out-of-the-box, please open an issue also.
If debugprint
doesn't support your filetype, you can add it as a custom
filetype in one of two ways:
-
In the
opts.filetypes
object insetup()
. -
Using the
require('debugprint').add_custom_filetypes()
method (designed for use fromftplugin/
directories, etc.
In either case, the format is the same. For example, if adding via setup()
:
local my_fileformat = {
left = 'print "',
left_var = 'print "', -- `left_var` is optional, for 'variable' lines only; `left` will be used if it's not present
right = '"',
mid_var = "${",
right_var = '}"',
}
require('debugprint').setup({ filetypes = { ["filetype"] = my_fileformat, ["another_filetype"] = another_of_my_fileformats, ... }})
or add_custom_filetypes()
:
require('debugprint').add_custom_filetypes({ my_fileformat, ... })
Your new file format will be merged in with those that already exist. If you pass in one that already exists, your configuration will override the built-in configuration.
The keys in the configuration are used like this:
Debug line type | Default keys | How debug line is constructed |
---|---|---|
Plain debug line | g?p /g?P |
my_fileformat.left .. "auto-gen DEBUG string" .. my_fileformat.right |
Variable debug line | g?v /g?V /g?o /g?O |
my_fileformat.left_var (or my_fileformat.left) .. "auto-gen DEBUG string, variable=" .. my_file_format.mid_var .. variable .. my_fileformat.right_var |
If it helps to understand these, you can look at the built-in configurations in filetypes.lua.
(This table is quite wide, you may need to scroll horizontally)
Feature | debugprint.nvim |
nvim-chainsaw | printer.nvim | refactoring.nvim | vim-printer | logsitter |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Auto-generation of debug line, incl. locator info | 👍 | ❌ | 👍 | 👍 | ❌ | 👍 |
Print plain debug lines | 👍 | 👍 | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ |
Print variables using current word/heuristic | 👍 | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ |
Print variables using treesitter | 👍 | 👍 | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ |
Print variables/expressions using prompts | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Print variables using motions | 👍 | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Print variables using visual mode | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | ❌ |
Print assertions | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Print stack traces | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Add time-tracking logic | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Add debugging breakpoints | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Print debug lines above/below current line | 👍 | ❌ | (via global config) | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ |
Supports dot-repeat | 👍 | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Can control whether to move to inserted lines | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Clean up all debug lines | 👍 | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Comment/uncomment all debug lines | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Can put debugprint text into default register | ❌ | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Built-in support for: | - | - | - | - | - | - |
AppleScript | 👍 | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
bash/sh | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ |
C | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
C# | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
C | 👍 | ❌ | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | ❌ |
CMake | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
dart | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Docker | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
DOS/Windows Batch | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Elixir | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
fish | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Fortran | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ |
Golang | 👍 | ❌ | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 |
Haskell | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Java | 👍 | ❌ | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | ❌ |
Javascript/Typescript | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 |
Kotlin | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
lean | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
lua | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 |
GNU Make | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Perl | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
PHP | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ |
Powershell/ps1 | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Python | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | ❌ |
R | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Ruby | 👍 | 👍 | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ |
Rust | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ |
Swift | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
VimL (vimscript) | 👍 | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ |
zsh | 👍 | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ |
Add custom filetypes (doced/supported) | 👍 | 👍 | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | 👍 |
Customizable callback formatter | ❌ | ❌ | 👍 | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Implemented in | Lua | Lua | Lua | Lua | VimL | Lua |
Other unmaintained plugins (last updated more than 3 years ago):