Debugging Sails.js app in WebStorm with breakpoints

Question

I followed instructions to create a Node.js configuration for my project, setting Application parameters to lift app.js as seen in other posts.

The point is, whenever I set a breakpoint anywhere, it never stops there, even if I try clicking Debug instead of Run.

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

When you create a new app you can run sails lift without any configuration params so it's a bit hard to assume what you're doing here that requires configuration without any further details.

I assume that you want to debug some value maybe, so if you want to debug things in JS code you can use console.log(var) and it could be followed by process.exit(1).

Try this, in config/bootstrap.js:

module.exports.bootstrap = function(cb) {
  var test = 'hello world';
  console.log(test);
  process.exit(1);
  cb();
};

Then do sails lift and you'll notice that it will log the test string and exit the application, nothing happens after that point. You may not need to use process.exit(1) in all cases, simply logging to the console usually helps.

You can also do this at any point in the application, it's not limited to bootstrap.js.

Just remember, the console in front end can be viewed in the browsers developer tools but the console in the back end (node) is viewed in the desktop/server terminal.

Also, console.log is generic and for whichever reason, you can do this the sails way too.