I am trying to understand how other people's website's java script is working. Basically I can see that while clicking on an item, the properties of this item are displayed in other part of the window and I am trying to find an onclick handler that does this job (to debug and understand it). What I do:
Open chrome dev tools
Load the page
Go to sources tab
Press "Pause script execution"
Click on the item
But after this happens dev tools stops at this part
var n = 0, r = function(e) {
b.event.simulate(t, e.target, b.event.fix(e), !0)
};
in the jquery-1.9.1.min.js. Now, I know that there is some custom java script code assigned to onClick event for sure, but don't understand why chrome debugger stops at some jquery code.
Related
I'm sure this must be a burden to other people too...
Say I am debugging a website, and there is an element on the site that when clicked calls a particular function; for example:
<img src="foo.png" onclick="javascript:Bar();" />
But I have no idea where Bar is declared in terms of the file structure. It could be coming from an external source or could be in the website solution.
Are there any tools that can be added into the browser (i.e. a FireFox extension) that can assist with this?
I'd sort of like something that when I click something that fires some javascript, breaks the execution and shows me where the execution was going to occur
You can use Firebug (FF add-on)
Open Firebug (press F12), Open Script tab and use search field.
In chrome (> v 15) developer tools you can search all sources.
Press F12, make sure the console is shown, then on the tab bar next to console is search, go into that tab, type in function Bar and hit return. Or after pressing F12 press Shift Ctrl F (Command option F on Mac)
There are a few caveats on this , e.g. i dont think this will find scripts inside iframes
I've a HTML page which contains some hacked script which contains something like, e.g.
setTimeout(function () {
window.location = window.location;
}, 3000);
But assume this page used a lot of minified JS and span over multiple files, with Chrome/Firefox developer tool, how to spot the above section of code from multiple files? i.e. stop the execution and break on the currently running line?
"spot(ting) the above section of code" and "stop(ping) the execution and break on the currently running line" are completely different things.
spot(ting) the above section of code
To find code anywhere in the various source files, your can use Chrome's Dev Tools' global search feature:
Open Dev Tools (F12, Ctrl+Shift+I, or via the menu)
Switch to the Sources pane
Press Ctrl+Shift+F (probably Cmd+Shift+F on a Mac)
Type what you want to find
stop(ping) the execution and break on the currently running line
Open Dev Tools (F12, Ctrl+Shift+I, or via the menu)
Switch to the Sources pane
Click the pause button (it looks like two vertical bars)
Dev Tools should break on the next bit of JavaScript that tries to run (according to this page on developer.chrome.com).
If the code is large and unknown to you, one option is to use the Profiler.
There's a "Profiles" tab in Chrome devtools and a "Performance" tab in Firefox devtools.
Each of these tools behave pretty much the same in that you start a recording, then wait (or perform any action on the page that you know leads to script running), then stop the recording.
The panel in the middle is going to display a call tree of all the scripts that ran during that period of time with columns that should, hopefully, tell you more about what took time.
Using that call tree, you can then drill down to discover what got executed exactly and then from there, jump to the actual line in the script.
Here's the chrome devtools profiler documentation page and here's the firefox devtools counterpart.
One other option you have, using the firefox devtools is the tracer. A tracer is a tool that record everything that occurred at the javascript level: what functions got called, what arguments where passed, what value got returned, what functions did those, in turn, called, ...
To check it out:
open about:config in firefox, then switch pref "devtools.debugger.tracer" to true.
Then open the devtools and switch to the debugger panel.
Then click on the double arrow icon, next to the pause/step over/step in/ step out buttons.
This will start the tracing and switch the side bar to the "traces" panel.
Click again to end the recording.
You should see the trace of what got executed. If you click on any entry in the trace, you'll see the associated script and in the sidebar, the arguments and return values.
I'm trying to debug a 3rd party widget (+1 button to be exact). Specifically, I'd like to set a breakpoint in Chrome that stops when a button in the widget is clicked.
I would like to break on the 3rd party code that handles to click event. Is there a Chrome extension (or something else I haven't thought of) to help me find the right place in the code to break on?
You can make use of Chrome's Developer Tools; no extension is required.
I made a +1 button example here: http://jsfiddle.net/rPnAe/.
If you go to that fiddle and then open Developer Tools (F12), then go to Scripts and expand Event Listener Breakpoints and lastly expand 'Mouse' and tick the 'click' checkbox, then whenever you click somewhere (which includes an event listener), the debugger will now break at the line of code which contains the listener function.
I am working on a toolbar button for Safari 6 and I even have the button in my toolbar. I have a Global.html with all the code. It has an event listener like so:
safari.application.addEventListener("command", functionName, false);
The function contains this:
function functionName(event) {
console.log(event.command);
<!-- more code here -->
}
But that console.log is never triggered. Nothing happens at all when I press the button. I have looked at code for other extensions and I cannot find any issues with mine. When I inspect my Global.html, I get a ReferenceError saying that the variable 'safari' can't be found (in the first code snippet).
Am I missing something that is needed to make a button like this work? This is my first JS/extension project and I am unsure of how to debug.
Just to update: Don't open Global.html as a webpage. Use the Inspect Global Page button in Extension Builder.
I am trying to reverse engineer a Microsoft CRM 2011 web page. The page loads a massive number of scripts and HTML. My current development focus is on the click event of a checkbox element on the page. Clicking the element causes behavior on the page to change, and I want to walk through the code that handles this.
The problem is the checkbox's click handler is attached during page load via an anonymous method. So the code is there, but trying to find it is asking one to locate a needle in a haystack.
Is there a technique using the Internet Explorer debugging tools to somehow make the debugger stop when the checkbox is clicked? There may not be, but I thought I would ask.
Your best bet is to run this in the console:
document.getElementById('theCheckBoxId').onclick
If null appears in the console, you can continue reading. Otherwise the onclick handler and it's code should appear right there in the console.
Use Chrome's dev tools: Right click something on the page -> inspect element. You'll see this:
Go to "SOURCES" (no longer called "Scripts") and there is a '||' Pause button as you see in the screenshot. If the page doesn't fail, you can check the checkbox, and since scripts are paused, you'll see the code for the anonymous function become highlighted and the page will be frozen. You can then use the tools to step through the code.
However, we can certainly better help you with what you actually want from the page...
You can also use attach a onbeforescriptexecute from the console: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/element.onbeforescriptexecute
You would be something like this in the console:
document.getElementById('theCheckBoxId').onbeforescriptexecute = function (e) {
alert('hey same thing as pausing the script!');
console.error('script with this id about to run: ' + e.target.id);
//Could also try .src .innerText etc.
//Reference this: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/element.onbeforescriptexecute
//the full argument to checkout in the console:
console.error(e);
};
You can also play around with the currentScript method: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/document.currentScript
You can also right click and inspect the check box, and then on the right panel of dev tools, look at the 'Click' event listener code, but often this is garbled and hard to work with.
It sounds like you have no way of modifying the anonymous function that is tied to the checkbox click event. If not, perhaps you can create a second event handler, but define it before the definition of the existing event handler.
Event handlers in the browser typically fire in the order they were defined. See http://jsfiddle.net/aroder/kkYfX/2/. If you defined your own event handler, it will give you a place to attach the debugger at least somewhere close to the anonymous function you are trying to step through.
Also, use the debugger statement to automatically break your code. If you are using IE, ensure the options under Tools > Options > Advanced > Disable Script Debugging (Internet Explorer) is UNchecked.
<script>
// the debugger statement will automatically break in IE dev tools, Firebug, and Chrome dev tools
debugger;
</script>
Older version of IE is pretty lame specially when it comes to debugging AJAX applications. Firebug is the best that I have seen. It lets you replace an existing javascript function with your own. This is what I suggest.
Open the web application in Firefox
Copy sourcecode of existing function
Format it and add the following statement to the function at the place where you want it to stop and inspect the variables.
debugger;
Paste the new code in Firebug's console window and click on Run .. that's it!