Reading PFRPG2s Debug Log

Reading PFRPG2s Debug Log

Today I looked a little bit into PFRPG2 to learn from it. I like the fact that you can pick up text from different text-boxes and it’ll automatically create the proper roll for you. Attacks, damage - it doesn’t matter. And it’s such an easy to use automation. No need to fill out a lot of different fields.

So I unpacked PFRPG2 first into a different folder. And then I started searching the code. I was lucky once I searched for the word “parse”. I found the string_attackline.lua with its “onHoverUpdate” method that triggers the parsing.

I also noticed that the code contains a lot of debugging messages that I wasn’t aware of. They all started with “GlobalDebug” and then some command. After looking into the global_debug.lua, I found those functions. global_debug.lua is loaded in a script-tag somewhere and given the name GlobalDebug.

Inside global_debug.lua, there’s a method “isDebugSet()” that checks the DB for a variable. After searching in Google how I could set the variable using a chat command (and failing), I thought - why not create the value myself by editing the database.

function getDebugNode()
	local nodeDebug = DB.findNode("global_debug");
	
	if not nodeDebug then
		nodeDebug = DB.createNode("global_debug", "string");
	end
	
	-- Set public so player instance can access.
	if User.isHost() then
		nodeDebug.setPublic(true);
	end
	
	return nodeDebug;
end

This is the code to read the value. The function createNode is found here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/refdoc/DB.xcp. It simply creates a top-level tag in the db.xml - if you set it to “on”, debug messages are enabled.

<global_debug type="string">on</global_debug>

To view these messages, you simply have to enter \console in chat and move the window that pops up somewhere - ideally to a second monitor. If you now do an action (e.g. hover over a damage action), you’ll immediately see the output as given by the script.

That’s it for today,

Regards

Tobias