python no overhead debugger on demand

One of the best ad-hock troubleshooting ways to figure out what caused an exception post mortem.

Run:

python -i your_script.py

After the exception you will be left at the python interpreter prompt staring at your exception.

Type:

import pdb
pdb.pm()

And you will be put into the context of the stack of the last exception. This means you can print/examine the local variables at the point of failure after the failure has occurred without having to change a line of code or import pdb in advance.

Another method that requires a little bit of preparation is to put the import pdb and pdb.set_trace() in a signal handler trap. *Moved the import of pdb out of the signal handler as imports in functions are deprecated. That way you can do a kill -SIGNAL PID or if the signal you trap is INT you can just Ctrl-C to get dropped into the debugger at any point. The signal handler technique is good for testing release candidates and released code because the signal handler doesn't create any runtime overhead.

Signal handler example. Debugger starts with Ctrl-C:

import pdb

import signal


def int_handler(signal, frame):
  pdb.set_trace()


if __name__ == "__main__":
  signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, int_handler)

Put that at the top of your script and you can start debugging your script at any point by typing Ctrl-C. Resume programe execution by typing exit at the Pdb prompt.