debugging tools

[manwhoeatsrats]

So far when it comes to debugging my script, I am dependent upon parsing errors to give me the line of code that is messed up.  of course that is not entirely accurate, for like the case where you leave out a } in an if statement as it says the problem is at the end of the document.

 

Another common tool I use is the echo statement.  this helps to see if values are being set, and if they are being set correctly. 

 

I also like notepad++ because if you select a begging bracket it will highlight the ending bracket.....

 

These are the most common methods I use in trouble shooting.... my question is this.

 

Are there any programs out there, that really help in debugging scripts?  I am talking purchased and open source.  Are there any other debugging tips that you guys recommend.

[gwolgamott]

Could always just code using zend's setup. But that's a suite of pay to use stuff mostly, good and bad... but I've used it in the past to compile code for testing before making it live. Gave some good parse errors... but hell now I use notepad to code and have no parse errors on. So echo and lots and lots of commenting... broken down into Object Oriented style programing so if error can test small functions and not a program.