Hi,
I've seen these answers: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1693677/debugging-php-on-mac
but I am hoping that there is a better/newer solution. I am a system-level developer (C/C++/x86) but totally new to the web/scripting space. I feel that I would do well do setup a solid debugging environment - it is usually a great way for me to learn.
Any suggestions/pointers as to a good php debugging setup on a Mac (10.6) would be much appreciated.
Thanks, Matt
I'd also be interested in a better solution but I doubt there is one.
xdebug with a frontend like NetBeans, Eclipse or MacGDBp is probably where the bets go.
I'm a Mac user myself and since I do some heavy PHP development, I need an elaborate setup for this.
First of all, the standard PHP and Apache installed in Snow Leopard isn't bad, but upgrading or adding extensions to it is quite a task. To be able to fully control the environment, I decided to install the entire AMP stack using MacPorts. Don't worry about overwriting existing files, as everything will be installed in separate locations. Just make sure you disable the stock Apache before starting the newly installed one. There are loads of tutorials on how to get this done.
My IDE of choice is Komodo IDE. This IDE comes out of the box with integrated debugging using a preconfigured xdebug setup. I have ended up compiling and using the latest xdebug version instead of the stock version for compatibility reasons (PHP 5.3+). Many developers use the aforementioned Eclipse + PDT which offers a similar IDE, although slightly more has to be done to get it configured properly.
For remote debugging I have configured the PHP module in apache to load xdebug also and connect to my running IDE. More info about that can be found here. For complex web applications it is ideal if you can just open the browser, navigate to the correct webpage and activate debugging to step into the first line of code of that page.
For performance testing and tuning I use the profiling feature of xdebug. When enabled, xdebug will write callgrind files to a specific directory. I use MacCallGrind to visually analyse the profiler files. There is a free alternative called KCacheGrind which can be installed if you enabled MacPorts (as mentioned in the first suggestion).
I use this environment to develop pretty complex and large multi-homed projects, involving commandline (daemonized) PHP applications that utilize forking and IPC structures and extensions like memcache. I'm quite satisfied with how this setup works for me.