Aaron Brazell

This is a very simple plugin that creates a new adminbar menu with a list of pertinent API calls used on a page.
However, no good thing happens in a vacuum, and you good folks, are developers.
In order to log API calls, you should invoke the <code>log_api_call()</code> method of the <code>$ab_api_logger</code> global object. Of course, if you prefer, you can instantiate your own object using the <code>AB_API_Logger</code> class.
The <code>log_api_call()</code> method takes two properties. The first is an array of URLs that will be included as menu items (easy access, easy click to see responses). By default, the plugin maintains a property <code>$api_calls</code> with this array and uses it to parse out the menu items.
However, if you wish to maintain your own array, you can do that too. The plugin takes care of what it needs, and you can feel free to maintain what you need.
The second argument for the <code>log_api_calls()</code> method is the URL that will be added to the adminbar menu. You can escape it if you want, but I will as well for security.
The reason I built this plugin is because I deal with APIs a lot. My normal approach to API integration is to use a pre-existing PHP library or, more commonly, build a library around the API so I can use it easily without having to remember everything.
Usually, this means I create a class and that class is filled with methods that construct a URL based on parameters and then use <code>wp_remote_get()</code> to retrieve the response from the API. Anytime after the URL is created, invoke this plugin:
<pre><code>if( class_exists( 'AB_API_Logger' ) ) { // Example API Call: $api_url (http://api.example.com?apikey=asdfASD234&post_id=213) global $ab_api_logger; $ab_api_logger->log_api_call( $ab_api_logger->api_calls, $api_url ); } </code></pre>
Pull requests can be submitted via <a href="https://github.com/technosailor/ab-api-call-logger" rel="nofollow ugc">Github</a>

API Request Collector

This plugin is made for plugin developers that work with APIs and need easy access to debug information.

freekmurze

<a href="https://myray.app" rel="nofollow ugc">Ray</a> is a beautiful, lightweight desktop app that helps you debug your app. There’s a <a href="https://myray.app" rel="nofollow ugc">free demo</a> available that can be unlocked with a <a href="https://spatie.be/products/ray" rel="nofollow ugc">license</a>.
After installing this plugin, you can use the <code>ray()</code> function to quickly dump stuff. Any variable(s) that you pass to <code>ray()</code> will be displayed.
Here some examples:
<pre><code>ray('Hello world');

ray(['a' => 1, 'b' => 2])->color('red');

ray('multiple', 'arguments', 'are', 'welcome');

ray()->showQueries();
</code></pre>
There are many other helper functions available on Ray that allow you to display things that can help you debug such as <a href="https://spatie.be/docs/ray/v1/usage/framework-agnostic-php-project#measuring-performance-and-memory-usage" rel="nofollow ugc">runtime and memory usage</a>, <a href="https://spatie.be/docs/ray/v1/usage/wordpress#showing-queries" rel="nofollow ugc">queries that were executed</a>, and much more.
<h3>Full Documentation</h3>
The extensive documentation can be found <a href="https://spatie.be/docs/ray" rel="nofollow ugc">here</a>.
It contains the <a href="https://spatie.be/docs/ray/v1/installation-in-your-project/wordpress" rel="nofollow ugc">installation instructions</a> for WordPress.
After it is installed you can use any of the <a href="https://spatie.be/docs/ray/v1/usage/framework-agnostic-php-project" rel="nofollow ugc">framework agnostic</a> and <a href="https://spatie.be/docs/ray/v1/usage/wordpress" rel="nofollow ugc">WordPress specific functions</a>.

Just start using it and it saves me a lot of time & mistakes.
It takes only a few minutes to configure and helps me a lot in my daily work.

A very good solution for a quick & effucient debugging

Easy to use, great tool

It's much easier to use Ray than do all the error_log() and var_dump() calls on a page. You do not interrupt the flow (but you can pause it!) although receive all the needed information.

It's less powerful than Xdebug (although they have different purposes and use cases), but more flexible than printing debug output on a page/debug-bar/error log.

I highly recommend it.

Awesome tool to help developers debug the code

I was having trouble debugging an issue in my WP Cron task. It's quite complex and calls out to an external database in multiple places, so trying to figure out where the issue was started driving me insane.

As there was a PHP error in my code (I was trying to call a method on null) my logger wasn't picking up any issues, nor was it even logging sometimes and no exceptions were being thrown.

After installing Ray it worked right away with no setup (other than installing it with Composer). I then managed to find the issue in about 5 minutes because of Ray's simplicity and speed in giving you the output.

The UI is minimal which is perfect as nothing gets in your way while trying to debug and having everything formatted beautifully is a massive win over basic debug logging.

I bought a licence right away and would have happily paid 2x the price I did.

Amazingly simple yet powerful 👌

Where logging fails, Ray prevails


I've been using Ray for quite a while now and I have to say, it's one of the most useful dev tools I use! Gone are the days of spewing vardump and print_r to the screen!


Extremely helpful tool!


I use this plugin everyday while doing WordPress dev work.  It's a great tool.  


API Request Collector vs Ray