How to configure FirePHP?

Question

How to configure FirePHP with Magento to log response headers, dump objects to the browser console?

How to utilize FirePHP to reduce debugging time?

Answer 1

we developed a small debugging suite for Magento which includes besides showing rewrite conflicts, a log file viewer, etc.. in the backend also integrations for FirePHP, ChromePHP and Firelogger.

You can find the extension here: https://github.com/firegento/firegento-debug

Once installed and activated in the system configuration, you can log your data for FirePHP like this:

Mage::helper('firegento/log')->firephp(WHAT_YOU_WANT_TO_LOG)

Answer 2

Since Magento comes with the Zend Framework bundled you can use Zend_Log_Writer_Firebug. One of the examples on ZF documentation shows how to use it

http://framework.zend.com/manual/1.12/en/zend.log.writers.html.

=> To not repeat yourself you can wrap this into your helper class

<?php

class Fooman_Common_Helper_Debug extends Mage_Core_Helper_Abstract {
    /**
     * send to Firebug
     *
     * @param $content
     */
    public function sendToFirebug($content) {
        $writer = new Zend_Log_Writer_Firebug();
        $logger = new Zend_Log($writer);

        $request = new Zend_Controller_Request_Http();
        $response = new Zend_Controller_Response_Http();
        $channel = Zend_Wildfire_Channel_HttpHeaders::getInstance();
        $channel->setRequest($request);
        $channel->setResponse($response);

        // Start output buffering
        ob_start();

        // Now you can make calls to the logger

        $logger->log($content, Zend_Log::INFO);

        // Flush log data to browser
        $channel->flush();
        $response->sendHeaders();
    }
}

=> and then every time you want to send something to the firephp console use it

Mage::helper('foomancommon/debug')->sendToFirebug("TEST");
Mage::helper('foomancommon/debug')->sendToFirebug(Mage::app()->getRequest());
Mage::helper('foomancommon/debug')->sendToFirebug(Mage::app()->getResponse());

The actual response headers that are sent would be viewable on the net tab.