Merge pull request #18 from php-debugger/logging

write the logging guide page

Author: carlos-granados

docs/user-guide/logging.md

@@ -2,8 +2,117 @@
 title: Logging
 ---
 
-Powerful logging capabilities for debugging and tracing debugger activity and connection issues.
+Two different things get called logging here, and they solve different problems.
+
+One is your own output — the `echo` and `var_dump()` you scatter about — arriving
+in your editor instead of the response body. The other is the debugger's own log,
+which is what you reach for when the debugger itself is not behaving.
+
+## Your script's output in the editor
+
+Your editor can ask for a copy of everything the script writes to standard output.
+`echo`, `print_r()`, `var_dump()`, whatever a framework writes — all of it appears
+in a console panel as the request runs, rather than only in the response.
+
+You turn this on in your editor, not in `php.ini`. It is negotiated when the
+session starts, so look for a "capture output" or "console" setting there.
+
+The useful part is *when* it shows up. Output arrives as it is produced, so on a
+request that dies before it can respond, or one whose output you never see because
+it is a background job or an API call made by something else, the console is often
+the only place that output exists.
+
+Editors ask for one of two behaviours:
+
+| Mode | Effect |
+| --- | --- |
+| Copy | The output goes to the editor *and* to the response as normal. |
+| Redirect | The output goes to the editor only, and is stripped from the response. |
+
+Copy is the safe default and what most editors ask for. Redirect is occasionally
+useful when debug output would corrupt a response that has to stay well-formed —
+JSON an API client will parse, say — but remember that anything the client was
+supposed to receive is gone too.
+
+:::note[Standard error is not included]
+
+Only standard output is captured. Capturing standard error is not implemented — an
+editor that asks for it is simply told the request failed — so anything written
+there, such as `error_log()` without a destination, `fwrite()` to `STDERR` or PHP's
+own startup errors, is not in the console.
+
+If something is missing that you are certain was printed, this is usually why. Look
+in the PHP error log for it.
+
+:::
+
+## The debugger's own log
+
+The debug log is for the times the debugger is the problem: the session never
+starts, a breakpoint never fires, the connection dies mid-request. It records what
+the debugger decided and why.
+
+Point it at a file:
+
+```ini
+php_debugger.log=/tmp/php-debugger.log
+```
+
+The file is appended to, never truncated, and every line is flushed as it is
+written — so a crash does not cost you the last thing it was doing. It is one file
+for every process using it, and lines from concurrent requests interleave, which is
+why each line begins with its PID.
+
+A line looks like this:
+
+```
+[12345] [Step Debug] INFO: Connecting to configured address/port: localhost:9003.
+```
+
+That is the PID, the area of the debugger the message came from, the severity, and
+the message itself. When you are staring at a log holding several requests at once,
+the PID is what lets you follow one of them through.
+
+### How much it records
+
+`php_debugger.log_level` is a threshold — everything at or below the number you set
+is written:
+
+| Level | Name | What it adds |
+| --- | --- | --- |
+| 0 | Critical | Failures that stopped the debugger from working at all, such as an invalid mode. |
+| 1 | Error | Things that failed, such as a log file that could not be opened. |
+| 3 | Warning | Recoverable problems, such as falling back after client discovery found nothing. |
+| 5 | Communication | Every protocol message in both directions, as raw XML. |
+| 7 | Info | Connection attempts, sessions starting and ending, breakpoints being resolved. **The default.** |
+| 10 | Debug | Everything, including each trigger check and path-mapping decision. |
+
+The default of `7` is the right place to start, and it answers most questions on
+its own — it tells you whether a connection was attempted, where to, and whether it
+succeeded.
+
+Reach for `10` when the question is "why did the debugger not even try", since that
+is the level that shows the decisions leading up to a connection. Level `5` is a
+different tool: it is for when the debugger and your editor are talking but
+disagreeing, and you need to see what was actually sent.
+
+### Without a log file
+
+Some of it still reaches you. With no log file configured, the debugger writes its
+Error and Critical messages to PHP's own error log instead, so a hard failure
+leaves a trace whether or not you set anything up.
+
+Everything gentler than that is dropped, which is why a session that quietly fails
+to start gives you nothing until you point `php_debugger.log` at a file.
+
+:::tip[Turn it off when you are done]
+
+Every line is flushed to disk as it happens, and at level `10` there are a great
+many lines. That is fine for a debugging session and wasteful for anything else, so
+the log is best switched on for a question and off once you have the answer.
+
+Leaving `php_debugger.log` set on a shared or long-running environment also means a
+file that grows without limit, and one that records paths, trigger values and
+protocol traffic — not something to leave lying around.
 
-:::note
-This page is a work in progress — full documentation is coming soon.
 :::