Throughout recent times I have been developing using ColdFusion, which is all well and good apart from the debugging element. I’m sure if your used to ColdFusion then you are certainly used to the tag CFDump to debug what you have actually put in any given variable. But when visiting the getrailo.org site I saw a link to Fusion Reactor’s FusionDebug being as I am already developing using Eclipse and FusionDebug has a plug-in for Eclipse I thought I would give it a try, and I’m glad I did.

Install FusionDebug on Eclipse

Start up Eclipse and select the Help -> Software Updates -> Find and Install options this will present you with a dialog box, select “Search for new features in Install” and after clicking next you will have to select “New Remote Site”. In the resulting dialog box enter the following information:

• Name: FusionDebug Update Site
• URL: http://www.fusion-reactor.com/fd/fd3update/

Ensure the “FusionDebug Update Site” is checked within the “Install/Debug” dialog and click finish.

You have now installed the plug-in and should now be able to see the new window “FusionDebug” you will of course have to license FusionDebug for continued use but Fusion Reactor are offering a 30 day trial license, which I would recommend to make sure this is the right plug-in for you.

FusionDebug Start-up part 1

To use the FusionDebug plug-in with Railo you will need to set up a debug port on the Tomcat installation that is running Railo. This is done very simply by altering Catalina.bat and adding you will basically have to add one line to this batch file.

CATALINA_OPTS=-Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,

server=y, suspend=n, address=8000

(if you copy amd paste the line above it needs to be on one line with no spaces)

This should be placed directly beneath the large comment block found at the top of the Catalina.bat file, now when you want to start Tomcat do it through running the Catalina.bat file this will mean you will have a running tomcat with a debugging port.

FusionDebug Start-up part 2

Ensure that your coldfusion project is loaded as a project in Eclipse, a good plug-in for Eclipse is CFEclipse this does come as part of the FusionDebug as long as make sure it is selected as part of the plug-in install.

Now we have a running Tomcat with an open debugging port, we need to let the FusionDebug plug-in know which port to look for and in which project. So within Eclipse go to Debug and select from the drop down Debug Configurations here you will see a tree on the hand side which should include FusionDebug. Click on “New” enter name in the appropriate box. Then in the configuration panel. enter the required information remembering that the port is now 8000 or whatever you chose for the port entry in Catalina.bat.

Now click the “Run” button and your done, you now have the ability to debug ColdFusion code using FusionDebug.