Debugging in WooCommerce 3

When developing custom shipping methods for WooCommerce, debugging can be a challenge. Despite overriding the calculate_shipping function and adding console logs, you may not see any output in the browser console. This is because server-side background processes, like calculating shipping methods, cannot execute JavaScript code.

Enhanced Debugging Techniques

1. WC Logs and WC_Logger Class

WooCommerce 3 introduces the WC_Logger class, which provides a more robust way to debug server-side processes. By logging to a WC logger, you can access the results easily from the WooCommerce dashboard under System Status > Logs.

How to Use WC_Logger

To log exceptions to a WC logger:

$log = new WC_Logger();
$log_entry = print_r( $e, true );
$log_entry .= 'Exception Trace: ' . print_r( $e->getTraceAsString(), true );
$log->log( 'new-woocommerce-log-name', $log_entry );

Notes

• Group logs by context and severity by specifying additional parameters in the log() method.
• Use $logger = wc_get_logger(); and then run $logger->debug() instead of $log->add() for backward compatibility.

2. Debugging with WP_DEBUG Log

As an alternative, you can enable WordPress debug mode by editing wp-config.php and adding the following lines:

define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );
define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false );

Errors will be logged in wp-content/debug.log. You can use error_log( print_r( $variable, true ) ); to display variable data in the log.