humantropy

I normally edit PHP in jEdit but it does not support PHP debugging. Netbeans is an open-source free editor that can be configured with a PHP module that does support debugging, which turns out works pretty well (as of this writing I am using Netbeans 7.1).  Xdebug is the PHP extension I am using. In Ubuntu you can install it with:

sudo apt-get install php5-xdebug
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload

Of course you install it either on your local machine for local debugging, or on the remote server you want to debug. I won’t go into detail about the increased load on your server or security risks, those are for you to research and make informed decisions. Here’s more information about  configuring Netbeans to use Xdebug. If you are trying to debug a remote server, make sure to read this. Basically your php.ini has to have the following:

[xdebug]
xdebug.remote_enable=on
xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp
xdebug.remote_host=LOCAL_MACHINE_IP
xdebug.remote_port=9000

Replace LOCAL_MACHINE_IP with your ip address. Xdebug is set up to only allow one IP to use the debugging feature. My setup is such that I have a fixed IP to use. I’m sure you could use DynDNS or some other such service if you do not have a fixed IP.

My breakthrough in getting this to work was understanding the debugging dynamics. It is easy to debug a simple page, but what if you need to debug a form submission? You can’t just go to the submission page and hit debug, because you’ll be missing the GET or POST variables you need to make it work. To make this work a bit more easily, download and install Easy-Xdebug, a Firefox extension.

Now go to Netbeans, and “Tools->Options->PHP”. Go to the debugging tab and make sure you select “stop at first line”. Now, right-click on  your project in the Project window (usually on the upper left in Netbeans).  You are looking for the project properties. When this window opens, go to “Run Configuration->Advanced”. Select “Do Not Open Web Browser”. This was the only way I could stop Netbeans from debugging the file (without GET or POST vars) instead of just listening for a debug connection. I’m assuming you’ve set up everything else under project properties to enable the debugger to connect to the server (correct paths, etc). Save preferences, and hit the debug button. It doesn’t really matter what file you have open, you are just putting Netbeans into “listening mode”. Now go to Firefox, load the form and fill it out, but before submitting click on Easy-Xdebug’s small icon in the lower right corner of the page. If you don’t see it go to “Views->Toolbars” and make sure “Add-Ons Bar” is selected. Now hit submit. If you’ve done it correctly, the browser will just hang there as if waiting for the server. Now go to Netbeans and the submission page should be open and in debug mode with all the required GET or POST parameters. Credit to this post for helping me make this work.