DevTools/Features/Debugger

Feature	Status	ETA	Owner
DevTools/Features/Debugger	planning	YYYY-MM-DD	Kevin Dangoor

Summary

Initial take on an integrated JavaScript debugger for Firefox.

Team

Have some thoughts on what you want out of a debugger? Inspiration on how to do it? Join us on #devtools on irc.mozilla.org

• Feature Manager: Kevin Dangoor (irc: kdangoor)
• Lead Developer: Dave Camp (irc: dcamp)
• Product Manager: Kevin Dangoor (irc: kdangoor)
• QA: TBD
• UX: TBD
• Security: TBD

Release Requirements

TBD

Next Steps

• scope out the project

Related Bugs & Dependencies

See the status page for the bug list and current status.

Designs

TBD

Planning

What follows is some plan-related sketching, please update appropriately.

Basic Protocol Support

Basic implementation of the Remote Debugging Protocol.

Protocol Transports

• Simple TCP socket protocol - Needed for remote debugging.
• Shouldn't need sockets for in-process debugging, can probably just post events directly to/from the handler thread.
• Need to figure out transport between chrome/content for e10s (See inter-process dispatch, below).
• WebSockets (not needed for an initial implementation).

Protocol Handler Thread

• Handles incoming protocol requests on a thread, needed to interrupt running script on other threads.
• Will handle transport IO as needed (for socket/websocket/etc transports).
• Handle inter-thread dispatching
  • Dispatching incoming protocol messages to actors on the proper thread.
  • An actor's parent or child might be on a different thread (for example when a browser tab actor might have a WebWorker actor as a child). Releasing a parent actor needs to release children, including on the other threads.
• Handle inter-process dispatching
  • Similar issues to inter-thread dispatch, but communicating to content processes using the debugging protocol.

Actor registration API

• Including maintenance of the actor tree.

Client API

• With appropriate client-side transport support.

Debugging compartments

• The debugger must be in a separate compartment from the debuggee, some sort of sandbox/new global-and-compartment for hosting a given thread's debugging actors.

Browser Protocol Integration

Firefox-specific integration of the remote protocol.

Content Tab Contexts

• Will need to maintain a list of compartments needing debugging for the document tree loaded in the tab.
• Manage lifetimes and notifications related to navigation.
• Tabs exposed as a thread-like actor (or maybe with an immediate child for the main thread running in that tab?)

Chrome Context

• For debugging firefox.

WebWorker/ChromeWorker

• Related to inter-thread dispatch above. Likely to require some platform work on webworkers to get them to load the debug protocol implementation on startup?

Stack Traces

JSD2 support

• Debug_Object#Debug.Frame
• Mostly (?) implemented in jsdbg2 branch.

Remote Protocol Support

• Remote_Debugging_Protocol#Listing_Stack_Frames
• Incomplete.

UI Notes: Other Debuggers

• Firebug
  • Stack frame shows function name/source/line num, args
  • Expand frames to view function args
  • Selecting stack frame moves source view
  • Right-clicking stack frames allowed viewing properties of function objects in the DOM tab.
  • Breadcrumb view of the stack in the source view.

• Chrome
  • Stack frame shows function name/source/line
  • Scope variables/environment in a different pane (see Environments)
  • Selecting stack frame moves source view

Lexical Environments

JSD2

• Debug_Object#Debug.Environment
• Incomplete?

Remote Protocol Support

• Remote_Debugging_Protocol#Lexical_Environments
• Incomplete.

UI Notes: Other Debuggers

• Firebug:
  • XXX: I couldn't find where/if firebug exposes lexical scopes.

• Chrome:
  • Scope chain exposed as a list, property viewers for each scope.