How to debug POG-generated objects

Sometimes, while working with POG generated PHP objects, you might get unexpected results. Here’s a short cheatsheet that should help you diagnose and solve your issue(s) quickly:

Verify Object validity
Check that the object generated is valid by loading it into a PHP editor. If there are any syntax errors, it will show up. In extremely rare cases, POG might generate invalid PHP objects. For instance, If your object doesn’t have an appropriate name or attributes (e.g. object name which starts with a Number instead of an Alphabetical character).

Run Setup
POG Setup’s main purpose is to automate table creation (if necessary), perform unit testing and provide a light scaffolding environment for your objects. Each time setup is run, all the objects present in the /objects folder are tested and verified to make sure that all 5 CRUD methods are working correctly. This is a quick way to determine whether or not any change you made to the object is causing you trouble.

POG Setup Failure?
If you encounter any fatal issues during POG setup, POG will prevent you from proceeding. The issues in the “fatal” category include:

1. Table not properly created
2. Mismatch between POG Object and Existing table.

In the first case, simply copy the SQL from the object header and try to execute it on your database. If there are issues with the SQL statement, you’ll be able to see it right away.

In the second case, drop any existing table and let POG try to recreate it.

Including all necessary files
Did you include all the necessary files at the beginning of your PHP file?

• configuration.php
• class.database.php (PHP 4 and PHP 5 objects only)
• object files themselves

Echoing out sql queries
Until we find the time to implement a debug setting, you can easily see what query POG is issuing to the database by echoing out the $pog_query variable within any object. For instance, let’s say you have a Save() statement in your code but nothing is happening on the database level, i.e. no records are being created. Simply put an echo command in front of the $pog_query variable in the Save() method of your object. This will echo out the query just before it is dispatched to the database and you’ll most probably find why the query is invalid immediately.

Print_r(Object)
Sometimes, you just want to see what’s the internal state of your object, whether it’s after you go a Get() or Save(). You can easily print out the contents of your php object by using print_r

Read documentation
The POG documentation outlines the essential things you should know before using POG. We’ve also create some documentation summary in PDF format that you can download and read at your leisure.

Ask for help
Head to the POG Google group and search the archive for similar issues that have been solved. More often than not, your questions have already been answered previously. If not, feel free to post your issue. We’ll get back to you ASAP

Other common issues
Other issues commonly encountered when dealing with PHP Database objects are:

• serialization issues while using PHP objects and Session variables
• data related issue (e.g null values in database)

Hopefully, this will help reduce your debugging time to a minimum while dealing with POG objects.