Background
I’ve created a debug helper function in my PHP/WordPress development called TraceIt($value, $type, $param1).
TraceIt does a bit more than just echo out a value. It will format echo out based on value type or specified type, can be environmentally switched to not echo, and can write to a log file.
It’s also easier to find where actual tracing is being used versus the legitimate echo output.
The problem is, sometimes I forget to comment a trace, which is no good, especially when trying to perform a redirect.
And while I usually include a string value in the output that I can search for, sometimes in the heat of the debugging moment I forget that.
Solution
The easiest [and some may argue “painful”] way to find occurrences of forgotten TraceIt calls is regex.
What I needed was a way to find all instances of “TraceIt” but not “//TraceIt” (already commented).
And here it is:
^(?!([ \t]*\/\/[ \t]*TraceIt)|[ \t]*\/\/).*((^TraceIt)|( TraceIt)|(\tTraceIt)|(;TraceIt))
You can see it in action, with an explanation of each component, at https://regexr.com/46nbq.
The only problem with this is it also picks up instances of TraceIt on a line that already has //TraceIt earlier in the line. But I can live with those rare occurences for now.
Oh, and don’t forget to use the /gim flags (global, case insensitive and multi-line).
The regex will find occurrences like this:
coding is here; TraceIt("aaaa");
TraceIt("aaaa");
another line of code;
TraceIt('bbb'); more code
TraceIt('ccc');
TraceIt('bbb');
some more code; TraceIt("adsfadfa");
But not like this:
//TraceIt("aaaa");
//TraceIt("bbb"); TraceIt("ccc")
// TraceIt("ddd");
// TraceIt("ddd");
// TraceIt("eee");
another line of code;
some code; //TraceIt('fff');
// // TraceIt("gggg");