System Template

write()

Write a string to the debug buffer.

Syntax

void = rb.debug.write(output, ...)

Parameters

The 'write' method takes 2 parameters:

Results

The 'write' method returns no useful information.

Remarks

The presentation engine maintains a 'debug' text buffer. This is empty at the beginning of each page generation. This method appends one or more strings into this buffer. By default - if the page executes successfully then the contents of this buffer are discarded. However, in the test instance, if the page generation process generated errors then the page the contents of the debug buffer are output as part of the standard error page.

So the default behaviour of this method is:

This behaviour can be modified as follows:

The rb.debug.mode() allows the debug buffer to be enabled on the live site. This can be useful if there is a problem that only occurs on the live site and cannot be reproduced on the test site.

The <rb:insertdebug/> tag allows the Pattern Page to insert the contents of the debug buffer into the client page. This is very useful in those situations where a page does not generate any errors, but does not either generate the correct output. In these cases the error page will not be displayed.

You can use this method to write intermediate values to the debug buffer to be displayed. This allows you to inspect the values of JavaScript expressions as a page is executed and to understand why unexpected results occur.