Show debug variables as json (instead of strings)

[ivangsa]

Hi,

when debuging, on a breakpoint..

is it posible to show debug variables as expandable json objects?

currently I can only see them a json string with makes it harder to debug...

Thanks

[kirksl]

@ptrthomas wondering if this is something controllable from the DAP implementation when IDE requests variable info for stack frame?

https://microsoft.github.io/debug-adapter-protocol/specification#Types_Variable

[ptrthomas]

I think so, and I think supportsValueFormattingOptions and VariablePresentationHint which we don't set today has to be switched on. I'm busy with that rewrite which will anyway impact the debug adapter so will get around to it eventually. but any analysis / trial in the meantime would help

[kirksl]

@ptrthomas great. thanks for confirming.
@ivangsa solutioning for this can be tracked at karatelabs/karate#1281

[ptrthomas]

@ivangsa ok, so we need your help now. you can see commit above that tries to "guess" what the solution should be: karatelabs/karate@43c8a90

didn't seem to work. but by the way, note that when you right click on a variable and say "copy value" to clipboard, you get it pretty-printed

so when you say: expandable json objects.

• what do you mean ? do you have an example
• if this is something that VS code supports, please help us find the code that can enable this
• maybe you can look at the source of other plugins that deal with JS to see how it can be done, e.g: Debug Protocol: Include display hints on evaluation results microsoft/vscode-debugadapter-node#123

without this, we won't be able to address this. hope you can help !

[ivangsa]

ok, I will have a look into this because vscode supports this for other debugers, this is what I mean:

as you can see all variables can be expanded, as an structured tree... they are not just text..
this is very common in every debugger I have used

[ptrthomas]

@ivangsa ok. btw if you use slack: https://twitter.com/KarateDSL/status/937271659785961477