jpcaparas/xdebug-demo

A demo outlining the benefits of using Xdebug on your typical PHP development workflow.

Xdebug Demo

, _(*1)

A demo outlining the benefits of using Xdebug on your typical PHP development workflow., _(*2)

Requirements

1. PHP v5.6++ w/ Xdebug installed.
2. An IDE that supports Xdebug. This demo uses PhpStorm.
3. Google Chrome w/ the Xdebug helper extension installed.
4. Shell access.

Installation

To get started with this project, run:, _(*3)

composer create-project \
--prefer-source \
--stability=dev \
jpcaparas/xdebug-demo \
[dir-name]

Once cloned, run tests to ensure everything is intact:, _(*4)

./vendor/bin/codecept run

Xdebug might already be installed on your machine; to find out, run:, _(*5)

php -v

... which should result in an output similar to this:, _(*6)

PHP 7.1.5 (cli) (built: May 13 2017 13:30:32) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2017 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.1.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2017 Zend Technologies
    with Xdebug v2.5.1, Copyright (c) 2002-2017, by Derick Rethans

If you don't have the with Xdebug... line, you'll have to download, enable, and configure the Xdebug extension., _(*7)

Atlassian has a good, multi-platform guide on how to install Xdebug., _(*8)

Usage

Wiring everything up

Once you have Xdebug configured, mark breakpoints throughout your code base:, _(*9)

, _(*10)

Upon marking, ensure that your IDE has been set up to become a debug client., _(*11)

, _(*12)

... and allow the browser to connect to the client., _(*13)

, _(*14)

Now spin up a built-in web server from the terminal and we'll start debugging:, _(*15)

php -S localhost:8000 -t public

Connecting to the debug client

Open your browser on http://localhost:8000. You should see a form that asks for a GitHub username., _(*16)

Assuming that you have added breakpoints to the ./src/Services/GitHubService.php file, your should be able to breakpoint into the code upon sending the POST request., _(*17)

If the connection was successful, you'll be taken to the Debugger pane on PhpStorm, where you'll see a lot of stuff going on:, _(*18)

, _(*19)

At this point, all you need to do is familiarise yourself with the various commands at your disposal (e.g. frames, variables, console, stepping)., _(*20)

More information about the various Debugger features can be seen here., _(*21)

Gotchas

composer has become slower following Xdebug's installation. Is it possible to disable Xdebug on composer usage?, _(*22)

Yes, append this nifty script on your ~/.bash_aliases file (or its equivalent):, _(*23)

alias composer="php -n -d memory_limit=-1 $(which composer)"

The -n flag effectively disables PHP from reading the php.ini file (where Xdebug is defined)., _(*24)

Resources

Coming soon..., _(*25)

Attributions

This demo is part of Pixel Fusion Engineering Talks held every Friday, wherein we showcase tools and methodologies that empower developer productivity., _(*26)