Disclaimer

This is a new version of the plugin, which uses debugger-xml gem, and works only with Ruby >= 1.9. If you want to use ruby-debug-ide gem and/or Ruby <= 1.8.7, you should check 'v1.0' branch (http://github.com/astashov/vim-ruby-debugger/tree/v1.0)

Description

This Vim plugin implements interactive Ruby debugger in Vim.

This version of the plugin works only with Ruby >= 1.9. It uses debugger-xml under the hood, which is just a XML/IDE extension for the debugger gem, which supports Ruby 1.9.2 and 1.9.3 out-of-the-box, but doesn't support Ruby <= 1.8.7.

Features

1. It can debug any Ruby application (Rails, by default), debugger-xml gem
2. The debugger looks like in any IDE - you can go through the code, watch variables, breakpoints in a separate window, set and remove breakpoints.
3. It supports execution of commands in the context of stopped line. E.g., you can execute ':RdbEval User.all' in the Vim command line and it will display the results like usual echo Vim command.

Requirements

1. Vim >= 7.0, compiled with +signs, +clientserver and +ruby. You can verify it by VIM command:

   :echo has("signs") && has("clientserver") && has("ruby") && v:version > 700
   

   It should show result '1'.

2. debugger-xml gem.

3. For OS X:

   The vim that ships with OS X does not use ruby, nor does it support --servername, so MacVim must be used.

   Make sure that both MacVim, and mvim are installed.

   If they are not, you can use homebrew (http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/):

   brew install macvim
   

   This will install MacVim, along with the mvim command line utility.

Installation

1. Clone the repo

   git clone git://github.com/astashov/vim-ruby-debugger.git
   

   or just download the archive from here:

   http://github.com/astashov/vim-ruby-debugger/tarball/master
   

   You will get the 'vim-ruby-debugger' dir with the plugin.

2. Copy contents of the 'vim-ruby-debugger' dir to your ~/.vim/ (or to ~/.vim/bundle/vim-ruby-debugger if you use pathogen).

3. Generate the local tags file

   :helptags ~/.vim/doc
   

   Now, you can use

   :help ruby-debugger
   

   to get help for the ruby-debugger plugin.

4. If using MacVim:

   Modify your ~/.vimrc to add the following line:

   let g:ruby_debugger_progname = 'mvim'

Windows is not supported, sorry, Windows users.

Using

1. Run Vim. If you use gvim/mvim, it will automatically start the server, but if you use vim, you need to set servername explicitly, e.g., vim --servername VIM

2. Go to the directory with some your Rails application.

    :cd ~/projects/rails
   

3. Run Server with Debugger:

    :Rdebugger
   

   It will run debugger-xml's rdebug-vim executable, create a UNIX socket in tmp directory, and connect to debugger-xml through it.

4. Set a breakpoint somewhere by <Leader>b (e.g., '\b'). You should see 'xx' symbol at current line.

5. Open a page with the breakpoint in a browser. Vim should automatically set the current line to the breakpoint.

6. After this, you can use commands:

    <Leader>b - set breakpoint at current line
    <Leader>v - open/close window with variables. You can expand/collapse variables by 'o' in normal mode or left-mouse double-click
    <Leader>n - step over
    <Leader>s - step into
    <Leader>c - continue
   

7. You may find useful to override default shortcut commands by F5-F8 shortcuts. Add these to your .vimrc:

     map <F7>  :call g:RubyDebugger.step()<CR>
     map <F5>  :call g:RubyDebugger.next()<CR>
     map <F8>  :call g:RubyDebugger.continue()<CR>
   

Testing

If you want to run tests, replace in /autoload directory ruby_debugger.vim to ruby_debugger.vim from additionals/autoload directory. And then, in command mode execute

     :call g:TU.run()

Screenshot

Thanks

Special thanks to tpope (for rails.vim) and Marty Grenfell (for NERDTree), mostly, I learn Vim Scripting from their projects.