expressions - dump / log variable value for debugging and troubleshooting

[aTomician]

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?

[Mylenium]

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 

[Mathias Moehl]

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).