What is the best way to set up a PHP development environment on a Mac?

Question

When I do PHP, I use XAMPP to set up a development environment on Windows, then upload to Linux servers, works very well.

I'm now passing on a PHP project to a person who has a Mac so he needs a local PHP dev environment. I noticed XAMPP has a version for Mac which I will recommend.

But knowing that Mac is always a bit different, has anyone used any other easy PHP environment setup tool for the Mac, or I could even imagine that Mac solves this issue more elegantly by e.g. having a web server ready to go upon first boot etc.

What is the best way to set up a PHP development environment on a Mac?

Answer 1

All you need to do is activate the web server in System Preferences > Sharing, put your files in ~/Sites and you're good to go. Nothing "different", just easier.</flamebait> If you prefer a more standalone server, I'd recommend MAMP.

Answer 2

Personally, I use Zend Server Community Edition for either windows or mac. Its packaged nicely and runs in its own directories.

Answer 3

If you want a easy solution I would go with MAMP. It is a simple webserver installer so most of the time you don't really have to configure anything: MAMP

If you need a userguide for installing MAMP you can find it here: Userguide

This guide also give some useful tips on how to make vhosts so you can make your own local domains to test: Virtual Hosts

Answer 4

I personally use Macports to setup the PHP Development environment. My guess is this is not the best solution right now since it requires a bit more configuration then a complete solution like Xampp but it gives you a bit more flexibility.

Macports

Once you have installed this (don't forget to install the XCode unix tools first) you can easily install packages. For instance:

sudo port install apache2
sudo port install php5 +apache2 
sudo port install mysql5

You can also easily add modules:

sudo port install php5-curl

I have setup Apache in the following way (Found this on stackoverflow) so I don't have to keep changing my apache conf file everytime I start a project.

NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName *.dev
        VirtualDocumentRoot "/Users/les/Documents/workspace/%-2+/site/html"
</VirtualHost>

When starting a new project I add this to my /etc/hosts file and restart apache:

127.0.0.1       merchant.dev

Which will effectively run scripts in /Users/les/Documents/workspace/merchant/site/html

Lastly, I use some handy aliasses in my .bash_profile

alias ap='sudo /opt/local/apache2/bin/apachectl'
alias apconfig='mate /opt/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf'
alias hostconfig='mate /etc/hosts'
alias dsclean='find . -name ".DS_Store" -depth -exec rm {} \;'

mate is a shortcut created by textmate (really useful general purpose texteditor for mac) dsclean is just something to keep our svn repositories clean of mac litter.