Testing and Debugging Function Stacks

Testing a Function Stack

1

Click at the top of your workflow to execute it.

Clicking this button opens the Run panel.

2

Populate any necessary inputs.

This information will be used to test your workflow. If you're copying and pasting JSON from another source, you can use the Format button to quickly turn it into a readable structure if necessary, although this will not impact the functionality of your test run.

3

Click to execute the workflow.

4

Review the response and timing, if desired.

Response

The response block will show you what the workflow has returned, if applicable, once execution has completed.

You can see the amount of time the request took to complete, and perform several actions from inside this block.

Click to copy the contents of the response

Click to copy the request as a cURL command to be used outside of Xano

Click to create a unit test based on this run.

Click to activate the debugger — more on this below.

Timing

You can further review more information for each step that executed during this run in the Timing block.

This block will provide individual timings for each step, allowing you to quickly pinpoint any points of delay that could be improved. You can also click the > icon next to each step to review that step's output for further investigation.

5

What's next?

Run it again by clicking , reset everything back to the initial state by clicking , or activate the debugger with .

---

Using the Debugger

The Debugger is used to review each step of execution, one at a time, to pinpoint the cause of any issues that might arise during that run.

Please note that each step is not actually individually being executed; the full run has completed prior to the debugger being available.

Simple Mode

Stop Debugging

Restart the Debugger

Move to the next step

As you move through each step, the current will be highlighted as shown below.

Completed steps will be highlighted in green.

As you progress through each step, the Variables panel will update with current data.

Clicking different steps in your function stack will bring the debugger to that point.

Advanced Options

Click to enable the advanced debugging options.

• Step Over - When working with nested function stacks (custom functions or middleware), if you don't need to debug those, just step right over them and continue with the next function in your function stack

• Step Into / Step Out - Step into or out of a nested function (custom function or middleware) and continue the debugging experience seamlessly

• Continue - Continue with execution of your function stack

• Enable Breakpoints - Enable or disable breakpoints as a whole

• Step Forwards / Step Backwards - Toggle forward or reverse execution of your function stack

• Result - View the result of your completed execution

• Watches - Use custom Javascript expressions for more complex data monitoring or calculation as your function stack executes

• Variables - View the current contents of your variables as the function stack executes

• Copy 📄 / Add Watch 👁️ - Copies the variable's current contents, or adds a variable to your Watches list

• Breakpoints - Hover over the icon on the left side of each function to establish a breakpoint. Breakpoints will cause the debugger to pause at that step.

Unknown Errors and Debugger Errors

Unknown Error

The debugger encountered an error

If you see these messages, they could indicate one of the following:

• An unhandled exception in your logic

  • This means that you've likely ran across a rare error that we don't yet have specific messaging for. Please let us know about this so we can make an adjustment.

• Server resource issues

For assistance with either of these errors, please reach out to our support team. You can also review our documentation on memory usage to narrow down the cause.