Python PDB

An interactive debugger which allows you to interact via the python shell at specific places within your code.

The two important parts are

import pdb --> Use the pdb library

pdb.set_trace() --> Use this in each part of the code where you want to invoke the debugger

For instance, you might have a script which looks like this

import mylibrary

var1 = mylibrary.getvars()

Instead of using a heap of print var1, print type(var1). print dir(var1) etc to understand what is happening, you could instead do this

import mylibrary
import pdb

var1 = mylibrary.getvars()
pdb.set_trace()

This will drop you into a python debugger shell

q will exit the debugger and continue running your program

further reading