Developer tools

Location: Settings > Site administration > Development

Developers of Moodle code have some special links that are built into the standard Moodle package to assist them. Most are of no interest to the average site administrator.

These include:

• Debugging
• Web service test client
• Purge all caches
• Unit tests
• Functional DB tests

Potential useful to non-developer

Most of the Development links should NOT be used by the average site administrator. However, there are a couple of settings that might be useful for a cautious site administrator.

Debugging

At certain times a site administrator will need to see more and/or a more complete error message. The default is to show NONE. These messages can also 1) be very confusing to teachers and students when they suddenly appear and 2) can reveal things about your Moodle and web server that should not be common knowledge. Thus use with care and for short periods of time.

Purge all caches

One of the exceptions might be the "Purge all caches" link for those setting up a site for the first time. Moodle can cache themes, language strings, filters and other bits of information that have been calculated and stored by the web browser. This link forces all user web browsers to refresh their screens of any information that Moodle has cached. Several modules that use cache have settings which will turn off caching for that module. Eliminating or purging caches slows performance.