Editing Archive:EclipseEpicPerlDebug (section)

== Useful tricks ==

There are a number of useful things that you can do with the integrated development environment, here are a selection:

* ctrl-click on package names and function calls to be taken to their declaration (whether that be in your own code, or in some externally referenced module on the Perl Include Path).  Note that EPIC is only moderately good at this, and sometimes cannot locate things which it ought to be able to.
* placing the editing caret on a variable will highlight all uses of that variable in the current scope
* when a variable's type is known (e.g. it has been explicitly created using an object constructor), ctrl-space after the "->" arrow operator will provide a list of available methods.  Due to the weak/dynamic typing of Perl, this will not work for variables which have been obtained by an indirect route (such as by a function call)
* when debugging, you can step through the executing code line by line using the "step over" feature; this will then allow you to see the variables and their state in the perl interpreter at each stage of execution.  Very useful for picking apart confusing bugs.
* EPIC will constantly evaluate your code and alert you to most forms of syntax error, and warn of possible typos.
* entering a variable prefix (i.e. $, %, &, @, etc) and pressing ctrl-space will list all variables of that type that are currently in scope
* Running apache in debug mode retains control of the command line.  To quick kill apache, use ctrl-\ in the terminal in which you started it