xdebug

Every 6 months or so I take a stab at setting up line-level, breakpoint style debugging for PHP. In the past I've been able to get the debugger installed, but the lack of a decent interface to use in setting breakpoints and watches has limited the value of a debugger (one thing that I have found helpful is XDebug's profiling feature that lists all function calls in a nested format along with performance timing). The recent announcement of a new XDebug client for OS X got me back on that track, and while I wasn't able to get MacGDBP working as I wanted, it did lead me to re-evaluate the newest Eclipse offering for PHP coders: PDT. PDT has come a long way, and the combination of a robust IDE, nimble 'jumpt to' shortcuts and killer debugger integration are more than I can pass up. Here's how I got everything working on a Mac OS X 10.5 box.

Much of what follows was made possible by and incorporates instructions from these very good tutorials: