Debugging aids for developing web apps.

From: WILD Hartlieb <wildh_at_dic.at>
Date: 1998/01/18
Message-ID: <34c23e8c.0@193.186.161.49>#1/1

Debugging aids for developing web apps.
At the moment I'm developing db-apps (by PL/SQL-packages and procedures) showing the data via web pages.
Maybe I did not notice, but surely I was not told (clearly enough), if there were any tools helping me to debug. So the productivity sometimes is very poor and similars to a modern kind of modernized medieval torture (as I could visit in the London Dungeon) but to creative working.

Let me explain:
(Case 1) I fill a local variable (VARCHAR2) to use it as a part of a
parameter for one of the htp-procedures. The error "ORA-06502: PL/SQL: numeric or value error " occurred. It turned out that the local variable had to be extended from VARCHAR2 (100) to
(2000).

The error message does not give a hint to the line of code where the problem arose (the procedure has some 1,000 lines). What I need is a precise error description, including the point where the processing broke down, and a stepping through (as I know it from the Procedure Builder) but directly in a (maybe second) browser session. The error log does not show anything.

(Case 2) I built a simple program system showing a calendar for recent
events here in town. I ran flawlessly on a Intel-PC under OR v7.3.3 + OR Web Server 2.0. Then we changed the configuration and moved the database to a Digital Alpha PC and installed the propriate OR version (7.3.3, too, but the MS Web Server) there.

Now it turns out that there are occurring errors that are unexplainable to us at the moment. (We have some other OR-applications, too, but these seem to run without problems.)
One of these errors say that the parameters in the procedure call don't fit
(from the *.err - log):

PLS-00306: wrong number or types of arguments in call to 'AUTH'

      OWA SERVICE: WWW
        PROCEDURE: inp.auth

All the three parameters are VARCHAR2 DEFAULT NULL (!! yes!) and I filled them in the test. The result always was the err-msg above. Even, when I called that procedure directly by an URL adding the required params. It seems that the values for the params get lost somewhere and somehow.

AGAIN, what I need is a tool where I can watch

a) what the database is doing
b) what the contents of all the variables are
c) what comes back to the browser

step by step.

(Case 3) The same app as above. Sometimes (less before the change to the
Digital Alpha, but permanently abferwards) it appears as if the db does not return selected data. You submit the query form (procedure) and you see the browser (mainly Netscape) loading, and loading, and ... but no data appear
(until the timeout message).

The system (db, interpreter and web server) seem as a black box to me; I don't see a chance to look behind the scene what's happening (or not) and where and how.

---

I don't mind if you recommend a third party's tool but I need a.s.a.p a good and not too expensive solution of a situation that is a big problem not only to me (as I suppose). QUICK help is needed.

It is no solution to turn to the designer 2000 for these apps I'm needing for my clients are such small.

Oracle provides a system that is able to store the whole universe twice or more including all its complexity. Very nice & amusing, but what's about the support for the developers? Exactly those people who let this system come to live?

Thank you for advising me soon,
sincerely

Hartlieb WILD
Projektleitung

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Received on Sun Jan 18 1998 - 00:00:00 CST