Debugging options help sought

Hi,

Many thanks. I agree with you, viewing the xml instance data would help a  lot. There is nothing worse than trying to get to grips with something like creating an xforms file and then having a choice of nothing apparently happening ( e.g. clicking a submission button to no effect) or looking in a log file to see that a few hundred lines of debug code has been generated that doesn’t mean much to a poor newbie L(

Alex

As far as debugging XForms themselves goes, I find it *extremely* helpful being able to display the raw xml instance data on the form, because very often my problems are caused by the instance data not being what I think it is. And because bad or totally incorrect instance data generally doesn't cause actual exceptions but just means that fields don't display or submissions don't work, this can be pretty frustrating. If you look at the Orbeon Controls sample (http://www.orbeon.com/ops/goto-example/xforms-controls) you'll see what I mean - there's a button which you can whack to see a live formatted view of the xml under the form controls.

This is pretty cool, but it's a bit impractical for production forms because you need to manually add debug markup to each form definition to use it. Also it's a pain that you can't control which instance you see.

What I've done is add logic to our standard form pre-processing stylesheet which inserts similar markup into the form based on a XSLT parameter (which is driven from a log4j debug flag). It also adds a dropdown so you can choose which instance to view (I've attached a screenshot):

<xsl:param name="configuration-debug" select="'false'"/>

...
(in the model of the form):
<xsl:if test="$configuration-debug = 'true'">
    <xsl:variable name="instanceIds" select="//xforms:instance/@id"/>

    <xforms:instance id="forms-debug" xmlns="">
       <debug>
          <show-formatted-instance>false</show-formatted-instance>
          <selected-instance><xsl:value-of select="$instanceIds[1]"/></selected-instance>
          <available-instances>
             <xsl:for-each select="$instanceIds">
                <instanceId><xsl:value-of select="."/></instanceId>
             </xsl:for-each>
          </available-instances>
          <formated-instance>
             <span>
             </span>
          </formated-instance>
       </debug>
    </xforms:instance>
  
    <xforms:bind nodeset="instance('forms-debug')/formated-instance"
          calculate="if(../show-formatted-instance = 'false') then '' else saxon:serialize(xxforms:call-xpl
             ('oxf:/config/theme/format.xpl', 'data', xxforms:evaluate(concat('instance(&quot;',instance('forms-debug')/selected-instance, '&quot;)')), 'data')/*, 'html')"/>
</xsl:if>

...
(at the bottom of the xhtml:body):
<xsl:if test="$configuration-debug = 'true'">
    <xforms:switch>
       <xforms:case id="instance-hidden">
          <xforms:trigger appearance="">
             <xforms:label>Show raw XML</xforms:label>
             <xforms:toggle ev:event="DOMActivate" case="instance-visible"/>
             <xforms:setvalue ev:event="DOMActivate"  ref="instance('forms-debug')/show-formatted-instance" value="true()"/>
          </xforms:trigger>
       </xforms:case>
       <xforms:case id="instance-visible">
          <xforms:trigger appearance="">
             <xforms:label>Hide raw XML</xforms:label>
             <xforms:toggle ev:event="DOMActivate" case="instance-hidden"/>
             <xforms:setvalue ev:event="DOMActivate" ref="instance('forms-debug')/show-formatted-instance" value="false()"/>
          </xforms:trigger>
          <xforms:select1 ref="instance('forms-debug')/selected-instance">
             <xforms:label>Instance</xforms:label>
             <xforms:itemset nodeset="instance('forms-debug')/available-instances/instanceId">
                <xforms:label ref="."/>
                <xforms:value ref="."/>
             </xforms:itemset>
          </xforms:select1>
          <xforms:group>
             <xforms:output ref="instance('forms-debug')/formated-instance" mediatype="text/html"/>
          </xforms:group>
       </xforms:case>
    </xforms:switch>  
</xsl:if>

Maybe something similar could be added to xforms-epilogue.xpl so this is available by default, perhaps with the debug flag check in the XPL rather than the stylesheet itself? The test in my case is against a log4j logger because it's easy to change at runtime from the JOnAS web administration console, but could be made against a property in properties.xml, which can also be changed at runtime?

Adrian

Alessandro Vernet wrote:

Hi Alex,

Using the "debug" attribute in XPL can help. For instance adding a
debug on the output of your pipeline:

<p:param name="data" type="output" debug="Output of XPL"/>

If you did this, you will notice that nothing is logged, which means
that the pipeline didn't run. This is because the default submission
can only be a static XML file, so if you reference an XPL file there,
that XPL file will be your initial instance.

A better way to have an initial instance is to use in your XForms:
<xforms:instance id="i18n" src="i18n-resources"/>

And have in your page flow:
<page path-info="/xforms-i18n/i18n-resources" model="i18n-resources.xpl"/>

This way the pipeline i18n-resources.xpl generates the initial value
for the instance. This code is taken from the i18n example in
src\examples\web\examples\xforms\xforms-i18n.

Alex

On 6/20/06, Alex Sharaz [hidden email] wrote:

Chaps, I'm looking at expanding the wizard with pfc example to produce a
page orientated questionnaire. While I've had some success, my main
problem is debugging something if things go wrong.

Eg.
I've generate my own version of the wizard with pfc example which has
the following


    <page id="hd-survey4-intro" path-info="/hd-survey4"
default-submission="orig-xforms-model.xml" view="intro.xhtml">
        <action when="/survey/action = 'next'" >
            <result page="hd-survey4-question1" transform="oxf:xupdate">
                <xu:transformations>
                    <xu:update select="/survey/action"/>
                    <xu:update select="/survey/title"/>
                    <xu:update select="/survey/user"><xu:copy-of
select="document('input:instance')/survey/user/*"/></xu:update>
                    <xu:update select="/survey/questions"><xu:copy-of
select="document('input:instance')/survey/questions/*"/></xu:update>
                </xu:transformations>
            </result>
        </action>
    </page>

    <page id="hd-survey4-question1" path-info="/hd-survey4/question1"
view="question1.xhtml">
        <action when="/survey/action = 'previous'">
            <result page="hd-survey4-intro" transform="oxf:xupdate">
                <xu:transformations>
Etc .....

Where orig-xforms-model.xml has
    <survey >
            <action>hohoho</action>
            <user>
               <userid>[hidden email]</userid>
               <date>2004-01-01</date>
           </user>
            <title>Customer Satisfaction Survey</title>
            <questions>
            <action>BOO BOO BOO</action>
            <question1>
                <info>Tell us how you raised your problem last
month</info>
                <howraised />
            </question1>
            <question2>
                <info>Where did you raise the problem</info>
                <whereraised />
            </question2>
            <question3>
                <info>What was your experience of the problem raising
process last month?</info>
                <response />
            </question3>
            <question4>
                <info>What is the current status of the problem you
raised last month</info>
                <resolution />
            </question4>
            <question5>
                <info>Where you have had calls resolved last month - how
timely did you consider this resolution to be?</info>
                <responsetime />
            </question5>
            <question6>
                <info>What is your experience of the way that helpdek
communicated with you when working on your problem(s) last month</info>
                <communication />
            </question6>
            <question7>
                <info>Based upon your experience last month, would you
use one of the helpdesks to obtain a resolution to your IT problem in t
he future?</info>
                <useagain />
            </question7>
            <question8>
                <info>Do you have any thing else you would like to tell
us at this time?</info>
                <message />
            </question8>
</questions>
        </survey>

When I run this as an example, everything works as I'd expect.

If I replace the orig-xforms-model.xml with page-flow.xpl
#################


<p:config xmlns:p="http://www.orbeon.com/oxf/pipeline"
          xmlns:oxf="http://www.orbeon.com/oxf/processors">

    <p:param name="data" type="output"/>

    <p:processor name="oxf:java">
        <p:input name="config">
            <config sourcepath="." class="SessionAttributes"/>
        </p:input>
        <p:output name="data" id="sessionInfo"/>
    </p:processor>
<p:processor name="oxf:identity">
         <p:input  name="data"
href="aggregate('survey',statement.xml,#sessionInfo,xforms-model.xml)"/>
         <p:output name="data" ref="data"/>
</p:processor>
</p:config>

###############################################

Which should produce
<survey><action/><user><userid>[hidden email]</userid><date>2004-01
-01</date></user><questions>......</questions></survey> i.e. the same as
the static xml file I passed into it.

And pass it into the 1st page defined in page-flow.xml.

However, all that happens when I click the "next" button is ... nothing.
The same page is displayed again. I'm running PresentationServer Release
3.0.1.200606141411

Looking in the log4j.log file associated with ops shows huge reams of
logging that just wants to make your eyes glaze over.

What do other people do when attempting to debug a "complicated"
page-flow application.

Alex














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