Question

Is there a source code level debugger with breakpoints, single-stepping, etc.?

Answer 1

Yes.

The pdb module is a simple but adequate console-mode debugger for Python. It is part of the standard Python library, and is documented in the Library Reference Manual. You can also write your own debugger by using the code for pdb as an example.

The IDLE interactive development environment, which is part of the standard Python distribution (normally available as Tools/scripts/idle), includes a graphical debugger. There is documentation for the IDLE debugger at http://www.python.org/idle/doc/idle2.html#Debugger.

PythonWin is a Python IDE that includes a GUI debugger based on pdb. The Pythonwin debugger colors breakpoints and has quite a few cool features such as debugging non-Pythonwin programs. Pythonwin is available as part of the Python for Windows Extensions project and as a part of the ActivePython distribution (see http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePython/index.html).

Boa Constructor is an IDE and GUI builder that uses wxWidgets. It offers visual frame creation and manipulation, an object inspector, many views on the source like object browsers, inheritance hierarchies, doc string generated html documentation, an advanced debugger, integrated help, and Zope support.

Eric is an IDE built on PyQt and the Scintilla editing component.

Pydb is a version of the standard Python debugger pdb, modified for use with DDD (Data Display Debugger), a popular graphical debugger front end. Pydb can be found at http://bashdb.sourceforge.net/pydb/ and DDD can be found at http://www.gnu.org/software/ddd.

There are a number of commercial Python IDEs that include graphical debuggers. They include:

Wing IDE ( http://wingware.com/)
Komodo IDE ( http://www.activestate.com/Products/Komodo)

Answer 2

Thanks