Debug Variables

$AbortFunction
A custom function name replacing the built-in Abort() function.
$EnableDiag

The following actions are available only if you set $EnableDiag = 1; in your configuration file. They can be used for debugging and should not be set in a production environment.

?action=ruleset
displays a list of all markups in 4 columns:
  • column 1 = markup-name (1. parameter of markup() )
  • column 2 = when will rule apply (2. parameter of markup() )
  • column 3 = PmWiki's internal sort key (derived from #2)
  • column 4 = Debug backtrace information for potentially incompatible rules (filename, line number, pattern)
(see Custom Markup Using the Markup() function for custom wiki syntax ).
To see more than what ?action=ruleset gives you, apply the Cookbook:MarkupRulesetDebugging recipe: it can also show the pattern and the replacement strings.
  • doesn't make use of PmWiki's authorization mechanisms.

?action=phpinfo
displays the output of phpinfo() and exits. no page will be processed
  • doesn't make use of PmWiki's authorization mechanisms.

?action=diag
displays a dump of all global vars and exits. no page will be processed
  • doesn't make use of PmWiki's authorization mechanisms.
$EnableIMSCaching
A variable which, when set equal to 1, recognizes the "If-Modified-Since" header coming from browsers and allows browsers to use locally cached pages. Disabled by default to help the administrator customize its page without needing permanent reloading.
$EnableStopWatch
This activates an internal stopwatch that shows how long it takes to render a page. (If you have a wiki that composes a HTML page from multiple pages, such as a normal layout with a sidebar, you'll get separate timings for each subpage and for the total page.)
The timings can be displayed by adding <!--function:StopWatchHTML 1--> in the wiki template.
Valid values are: 
        $EnableStopWatch = 0; # No timings (the default). No HTML will be generated.
        $EnableStopWatch = 1; # Wall-clock timings only.
        $EnableStopWatch = 2; # Wall-clock and CPU usage timings. Won't work on Windows.
See Stopwatch for more details.

See also:

  • scripts/refcount.php is useful for debugging

Is it possible for someone with admin priviledges to always have access to debugging tools, without letting everyone else access them?

You can easily & automatically allow debugging for anyone with admin priviledges (meanwhile leaving it off for everyone else) by including this line in config.php - just be sure that 1) $EnableDiag is either null or set to 0, and 2) to include it near the end of config.php, AFTER declaring your passwords, and after any AuthUser or other priviledge settings:

if (CondAuth($pagename, 'admin')) $EnableDiag = 1; # allows admin to always call phpinfo, etc


This page may have a more recent version on pmwiki.org: PmWiki:DebugVariables, and a talk page: PmWiki:DebugVariables-Talk.