Is it possible to step through a RoR application? or only debug using the debugging breakpoint?

Question

I read that you can put a 'debugging' symbol in your RoR code, and then execution will Halt at that point and then you can then spit out anything into console to see the state of variables etc.

Is there a way to step though each line and follow the execution path?

Answer 1

There is documentation in the debugger itself. n and s are the commands that you are looking for.

(rdb:1) help
ruby-debug help v0.10.3
Type 'help <command-name>' for help on a specific command

Available commands:
backtrace  delete   enable  help    next  quit     show    trace    
break      disable  eval    info    p     reload   source  undisplay
catch      display  exit    irb     pp    restart  step    up       
condition  down     finish  list    ps    save     thread  var      
continue   edit     frame   method  putl  set      tmate   where    

(rdb:1) help next
n[ext][+-]?[ nnn]   step over once or nnn times, 
        '+' forces to move to another line.
        '-' is the opposite of '+' and disables the force_stepping setting.
(rdb:1) help step
s[tep][+-]?[ nnn]   step (into methods) once or nnn times
        '+' forces to move to another line.
        '-' is the opposite of '+' and disables the force_stepping setting.
(rdb:1) 

Answer 2

This Railscast episode has some tips on ruby-debug too.