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aTomician
aTomician
Inspiring
November 24, 2022
Question

expressions - dump / log variable value for debugging and troubleshooting

  • November 24, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 425 views

Hello all,

 

I'm used to webcoding so when an object is producing unexpected results I'll var_dump($object) in PHP or console.info(object) in JS to find out exactly what the object consists of, then I know what to fix.

 

I'm trying to find the AE equivalent and so far haven't found anything.  When writing complex expressions that link across layers, it can be very cumbersome to fix an error when I can't even see what properties a variable has.  I'm hoping I've missed something and that Adobe haven't overlooked this important aspect to writing code?

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2 replies

Mathias Moehl
Community Expert
Mathias MoehlCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 24, 2022

The debugging options for expressions are very limited. Often the best workaround is to throw an error with an error message showing the data you want to see (or as Mylenium suggested applying the expression to the source text of a text layer and return the data you want to see as a result, such that the text layer shows it as its text).

Mathias Möhl - Developer of tools like BeatEdit and Automation Blocks for Premiere Pro and After Effects
Mylenium
Mylenium
Legend
November 24, 2022

Expressions cannot create any files nor funnel info to a console. All you have is alert(), your wits and creative use of e.g text layers to find out what values are used inside your code.

 

Mylenium 

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