What's the best source-level debugger for ColdFusion MX 2004?

Question

I have a legacy web site in ColdFusion MX 2004. I'm re-writing it in .Net, so I don't want to pay $600+ for an upgrade to the latest version of ColdFusion, nor do I want to go through the (very large) site fixing version incompatibilities.

I often have to track down and fix bugs in the site.

A source-level debugger that would let me step through the code line-by-line and examine variables would be a HUGE time-saver.

Does anyone have experience using any of the third-party ColdFusion source-level debuggers?

Thanks very much in advance for any recommendations.

Answer 1

There's no such thing as ColdFusion MX 2004, neither in name nor release year (CFMX 6.1 was released in 2003, and CFMX 7 was released in 2005).

FusionDebug supports all versions of CFMX from 6.1 onwards.

You may want to investigate BlueDragon.NET, which allows you to run CFML code on the .NET platform, and may make the transition easier for you.

Answer 2

The developer versions of ColdFusion are free so you can install the latest version, install debugging tools into eclipse and run debugging for free.

The other option, if you prefer to debug on your target version of CF, is FusionDebug which supports CF 6.1 and up.

Answer 3

There are certain debuggers listed here on Charlie Arehart's site. http://www.carehart.org/cf411/#debug This CF411 site has a whole lot of great info on various subjects.

Answer 4

BlueDragon.Net is interesting, but I installed it and found out that it does not do source-level debugging.

Answer 5

You don't seem to have marked this question as answered. The answers are offered by others, but to be clear:

If you're running a version of CF prior to CF 8, then you can get line debugging using the available commercial third-party tool, FusionDebug (www.fusiondebug.com).

If you're running CF 8, it includes line debugging, for free.

Both approaches leverage the Eclipse IDE's built-in debugging capability, hooking it up to CF.

For more on each, I've written several articles:

The ColdFusion 8 Debugger Explained: Interactive Step Debugging for CF 8

Using the CF8 Debugger

FusionDebug Explained: Interactive Step Debugging for CFML

FusionDebug Tips and Tricks

Hope those help.