Simple WP FirePHP

I like the very simple API to FirePHP and find it very useful for debugging WordPress plugins and themes. There are a few other plugins out there that integrate FirePHP, notable WP-FirePHP and WP-Logger, but both add complexity that I don’t want to have to deal with for a quick debugging task.

It wouldn’t be that hard to install the FirePHP core and add the includes to wp-config.php, and that’s what I generally do on sites that I control, but having this plugin in the Wrodpress.org/extend directory means that I’ll be able to install it on the fly for a blog that someone hasn’t given me shell or ftp access to.

Plans

I don’t think I’ll do a whole lot more with this, since I want to keep it pretty simple, but I plan to make sure the plugin loads first (see wp-logger) and perhaps add a simple options screen. Might also add PHP4 support, but probably not.

1. Upload the plugin folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
3. Use FirePHP as you normally would on a general PHP site.
4. If you have issues, the first place to look is to make sure you’re using the FirePHP calls correctly. The FirePHP website is a good place to start.

Why am I getting the Headers Already Sent error when I activate Simple WP-FirePHP and use the fb() function?

This is part of the behavior of FirePHP itself and is not related to the Simple WP-FirePHP plugin at all – FirePHP requires that the server it’s running on be configured for output buffering (see line 4 on the FAQ page ). You can do this at the server level or within your script, either by opening output buffering at the beginning of the output and closing it at the end, or by surrounding the fb() call with buffering statements like so:

ob_start();

fb(“echo some stuff to the console”);

ob_end_flush();

0.1

• Alpha release – very simple includes

0.2

• Included the DBAD License
• Simple WP FirePHP loads first
• credit where credit is due (i.e. mostly not me)