Is there a way in php to count the nested stucture level?

Question

I'm experimenting with a way to more easily debug Cronjob Scripts with PHP. without having xdebug etc. accessible on the server.

For this, I'd like to get the number of nested structures the code entered. I'll call it NESTING with in the code.

There are at least two methods that use the nesting level in some way that I'm aware of.

break $n; that escapes $n nestings. And goto that doesn't allow entering deeper ones.

<?php 

print(__NESTING__);// 1

for($i=0;$i<10;$i++){

    print(__NESTING__);// 2

}

print(__NESTING__);// 1
die;

background:

This should work for PHP > 5.3 + 7 so far i tryed googleing the closest i got to the topic is:

ob_get_level()

Code sample:

debugger idea so far:

argv[1]='somefile.php;'

<?php

$script=fopen(argv[1],'rb');
$tfilename='T'.substr(md5(mt_rand()), 0, 7).argv[1];//some random name
$tscript=fopen($tfilename,'wb+');
fputs($tscript,fgets($script).' $next_line=0;$nest_limit=1;'); //<?php +ini

$line_num=0;
while($line=fgets($script)){

    $line='L'.($line_num++).': '. 
      'if((__LINE__>$next_line)&&(__NESTING__<=$nest_limit)){'.

       'print("Line".__LINE__.date('r'));eval(rtrim(fgets(STDIN)));'.

      '}'.$line;
    fputs($tscript,$line);
}
fclose($tscript);
fclose($script);
print('debug script?');
while(rtrim(fgets(STDIN))==='y'){
    try{include $tfilename;}catch(Exeption $e){print($e->getMessage());}
    print('repeat?');
}
unlink($tfilename);
die;

so one can execute a script, skip debug Lines, skip loops, goback a line, test script behavior with special values, print variables etc..

P.S.: I didn't test the code for errors so it might not run its to explain the idea and what I need the

__NESTING__ 

for.

Edit1: Expected output:

Line0 10:00:20 \\ press enter
Line1 10:00:20 \\ input: $next_line=10;
Line10 10:00:20 \\ enter
Line11 10:01:10 \\ someting takes a lot of time
PHP FATAL ERROR...

2cond try
Line0 10:01:15 \\ input $next_line=11
Line11 10:02:20 \\ input var_dump($something)

thankful for any pointers, cheers

PS.: thanks to Rubber duck debugging. noticed that i just need to set the $next_line to after the loop. still if some knows how get so nesting level would be nice to know

Answer 1

If I understand your question it sounds like you are trying to incorporate a counter to see how many times your script is running through before it dies/breaks/skips. That should be fairly straight-forward

$count = 0;
while ($line = fget($script)) {
  $count++;
  if ($foo = $bar) {
    $fooBar = $line;
    break;
  }
  if ($baz == 2) {
    goto 45;
  }
  //other random logic
}
echo "The script executed " . $count . " times.";

If you want to count to be after the logic, or only count the times it enters a specific part of your code you can setup additional variables to count specifics or move your counter to where exactly you want to see it counting.

However if you are iterating for a set number like in your first example

for ($i = 0, $i < 10, $i++)

then this is kinda useless as you already know the number of times you are executing. The only exception is if you have a break in your loop and you are trying to count the number of times it executes before breaking, then you can still use a counter to get that information.