1. Jetbrains Xdebug Chrome
2. Xdebug Chrome How To Use
3. Xdebug Chrome Extension
4. Xdebug Helper Crx
5. Chrome Xdebug Enabler

In order to start debugging, you first need to activate the debugger engine on the server. To do this, you need to set a special GET/POST or COOKIE parameter (see the Xdebug and Zend Debugger official documentation for details). While you can do it manually, it is more convenient to use a browser extension, which lets you enable the debugger with a single click.

The following table lists the available debugging extensions.

• Install Xdebug helper in Chrome. Search the Chrome web store for Xdebug and find the Xdebug helper extension installation. Phpstorm configuration. Make sure that the Xdebug port in phpstorm is also 9000 (the same as wamp’s Xdebug port): File Setting searches for Xdebug in the search box.
• Xdebug Helper for Chrome This extension for Chrome will help you to enable/disable debugging and profiling with a single click. You can find the extension at https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/eadndfjplgieldjbigjakmdgkmoaaaoc.
• Getting Xdebug to work with Phpstorm/Chrome Follow. Andrew Created April 16, 2020 11:04. Hello, I have spent a fair few hours now following the documentation on.

1. Install the Xdebug helper extension for Chrome from the Chrome Web Store.

2. In PhpStorm, enable listening to incoming debug connections by either clicking on the toolbar or selecting Run | Start Listening for PHP Debug Connections

3. Initiate connection from the browser side. Click the Xdebug Helper icon on the browser toolbar to initiate a debugging, profiling or tracing session:

4. As a rule, no further configuration is required. If necessary, you can explore additional settings by right-clicking the Xdebug Helper icon and choosing Options from the context menu.

Xdebug allows us to add breakpoints and stop the code execution at every breakpoint so that you can see variables output in only one iteration of code. Thus, saving your precious time which will be otherwise lost in code debugging. Without Xdebug, you must refresh the page to see the output again.

1. Install Zend Debugger Toolbar.

2. In PhpStorm, enable listening to incoming debug connections by either clicking on the toolbar or selecting Run | Start Listening for PHP Debug Connections

3. In the browser, click the Zend Debugger icon on the toolbar and select Settings. Make sure that Autodetect is selected, and the Broadcasting port value matches the value set for Settings broadcasting port on the Debug page in PhpStorm.

4. Initiate connection from the browser side. Click the Zend Debugger icon on the browser toolbar to initiate a debugging or profiling session:

Xdebug provides an interface for debugger clients that interact with running PHP scripts. This section explains how to set-up PHP and Xdebug to allow this, and introduces a few clients.

Introduction

Xdebug's (remote) debugger allows you to examine data structure,interactively walk through your and debug your code. The protocol that is beingused is open, and is called DBGp. This protocol isimplemented in Xdebug 2, and replaces an older GDB-like protocol that is nolonger supported.

Clients

There are many client implementations (both free and commercial). There are allthird party tools, so please refer to the original authors for support:

• Eclipse plugin (IDE).
• KDevelop (IDE: Linux (KDE); Open Source).
• ActiveState's Komodo (IDE: Windows, Linux, Mac; Commercial).
• NetBeans (IDE: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris).
• Notepad++plugin (Editor: Windows).
• Devsense's PHP Tools for Visual Studio (MS Visual Studio Plugin; Commercial).
• JetBrain's PhpStorm (IDE; Commercial).
• pugdebug (Standalone client for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X; Open Source).
• SublimeTextXdebug (Plugin for Sublime Text 2 and 3, Open Source).
• VIM plugin (Editor Plugin).

The simple command line client dbgpClient for debugging isavailable on the download page.

Starting The Debugger

In order to enable Xdebug's debugger you need to make some configurationsettings in php.ini. These settings are xdebug.remote_enable to enable thedebugger, xdebug.remote_host and xdebug.remote_port to configure the IP addressand port where the debugger should connect to. There is also axdebug.remote_connect_back setting that can be used if your development serveris shared with multiple developers.

If you want the debugger to initiate a session when an error situationoccurs (PHP error or exception) then you also need to change thexdebug.remote_mode setting. Allowed values for this setting are 'req' (thedefault) which makes the debugger initiate a session as soon as a script isstarted, or 'jit' when a session should only be initiated on an error.

After made all those settings Xdebug will still not start a debugging sessionautomatically when a script is run. You need to activate Xdebug's debuggerand you can do that in three ways:

Using an environment variable

When running the script from the command line you need to set anenvironment variable, like:

On Windows, setting an environment variable is done with set:

You can also configure the xdebug.remote_host, xdebug.remote_port,xdebug.remote_mode and xdebug.remote_handler in this same environment variable aslong as you separate the values by a space:

All settings that you can set through the XDEBUG_CONFIG setting can also be setwith normal php.ini settings.

Using a GET parameter

If you want to debug a script started through a web browser, simply addXDEBUG_SESSION_START=session_name as parameter to the URL.Instead of using a GET parameter, you can also set XDEBUG_SESSION_START as aPOST parameter, or through a cookie named XDEBUG_SESSION. Refer to the next section to read on how debug sessions workfrom within a browser window.

Using a browser extension

An alternative way to activate the debugger while running PHP through a webserver is by installing one of the following four browser extensions. Each ofthem allows you to simply enable the debugger by clicking on one button. Whenthese extensions are active, they set the XDEBUG_SESSION cookie directly,instead of going through XDEBUG_SESSION_START as described inHTTP Debug Sessions further on.

The extensions are:

Xdebug Helper for Firefox

This extension for Firefox was built to make debugging with an IDE easier. You can find the extension at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/xdebug-helper-for-firefox/. The source code for this extension is on GitHub.

Xdebug Helper for Chrome

This extension for Chrome will help you to enable/disable debugging and profiling with a single click. You can find the extension at https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/eadndfjplgieldjbigjakmdgkmoaaaoc.

XDebugToggle for Safari

This extension for Safari allows you to auto start Xdebug debugging from within Safari. You can get it from Github at https://github.com/kampfq/SafariXDebugToggle.

Xdebug launcher for Opera

This extension for Opera allows you to start an Xdebug session from Opera.

Before you start your script you will need to tell your client that it canreceive debug connections, please refer to the documentation of the specificclient on how to do this. To use the bundled client simply start it afterdownloading it. You canstart it by running dbgpClient on Linux,dbgpClient-macos on MacOS, and dbgpClient.exe onWindows.

When the debug client starts it will show version information and thenwaits until a connection is initiated by the debug server (Xdebug):

After a connection is made the output of the debug server is shown:

Now you can use the commands as explained on the DBGp documentation page. When the script ends thedebug server disconnects from the client and the debug client resumes withwaiting for a new connection. There is a more comprehensive documentationavailable for Command Line Debug Client as well.

Communication Set-up

With a static IP/single developer

With remote debugging, Xdebug embedded in PHP acts like the client, and the IDEas the server. The following animation shows how the communication channel isset-up:

• The IP of the server is 10.0.1.2 with HTTP on port 80
• The IDE is on IP 10.0.1.42, so xdebug.remote_host is set to 10.0.1.42
• The IDE listens on port 9000, so xdebug.remote_port is set to 9000
• The HTTP request is started on the machine running the IDE
• Xdebug connects to 10.0.1.42:9000
• Debugging runs, HTTP Response provided

With an unknown IP/multiple developers

If xdebug.remote_connect_back is used, the set-up is slightly different:

• The IP of the server is 10.0.1.2 with HTTP on port 80
• The IDE is on an unknown IP, so xdebug.remote_connect_back is set to 1
• The IDE listens on port 9000, so xdebug.remote_port is set to 9000
• The HTTP request is made, Xdebug detects the IP address from the HTTP headers
• Xdebug connects to the detected IP (10.0.1.42) on port 9000
• Debugging runs, HTTP Response provided

HTTP Debug Sessions

Xdebug contains functionality to keep track of a debug session when startedthrough a browser: cookies. This works like this:

• When the URL variable XDEBUG_SESSION_START=name is appendedto an URL—or through a POST variable with the same name—Xdebug emits a cookiewith the name 'XDEBUG_SESSION' and as value the value of theXDEBUG_SESSION_START URL parameter. The default expiry time of the cookie isone hour, but this can be configured through thexdebug.remote_cookie_expire_time setting. The DBGp protocol also passes thissame value to the init packet when connecting to the debuggingclient in the 'idekey' attribute.
• When there is a GET (or POST) variable XDEBUG_SESSION_START or theXDEBUG_SESSION cookie is set, Xdebug will try to connect to a debuggingclient.
• To stop a debug session (and to destroy the cookie) simply add the URLparameter XDEBUG_SESSION_STOP. Xdebug will then no longer tryto make a connection to the debugging client.

Multiple Users Debugging

Xdebug only allows you to specify one IP address to connect to withxdebug.remote_host) while doing remote debugging. It does notautomatically connect back to the IP address of the machine the browser runs on, unless you use xdebug.remote_connect_back.

If all of your developers work on different projects on the same (development)server, you can make the xdebug.remote_host setting for each directorythrough Apache's .htaccess functionality by using php_valuexdebug.remote_host=10.0.0.5. However, for the case where multipledevelopers work on the same code, the .htaccess trick does not work as thedirectory in which the code lives is the same.

There are two solutions to this. First of all, you can use a DBGp proxy.For an overview on how to use this proxy, please refer to the article at Debuggingwith multiple users. You can download the proxy onActiveState's website as part of the python remote debugging package. There is somemore documentation in theKomodo FAQ.

Secondly you canuse the xdebug.remote_connect_backsetting that was introduced inXdebug2.1.

Implementation Details

Xdebug's implementation of theDBGp protocol's context_namescommand does not depend on the stack level. The returned value is always thesame during each debugger session, and hence, can be safely cached.

Custom DBGp commands

The DBGp protocol allows for debugger engine specific commands, prefixed withthe xcmd_ prefix. Xdebug includes a few of these, and they'redocumented here.

DBGp: xcmd_profiler_name_get

If Xdebug's profiler is currently active (See: Profiling), this commandreturns the name of the file that is being used to write the profilinginformation to.

DBGp: xcmd_get_executable_lines

This command returns which lines in an active stack frame can have a workingbreakpoint. These are the lines which have an EXT_STMTopcode on them. This commands accepts a -d option, whichindicates the stack depth, with 0 being the top leve stack frame.

The command returns the information in the following XML format:

Jetbrains Xdebug Chrome

Related Settings and Functions

• integerxdebug.extended_info = 1
• stringxdebug.idekey = *complex*
• stringxdebug.remote_addr_header = '
• booleanxdebug.remote_autostart = false
• booleanxdebug.remote_connect_back = false
• integerxdebug.remote_cookie_expire_time = 3600
• booleanxdebug.remote_enable = false
• stringxdebug.remote_handler = dbgp
• stringxdebug.remote_host = localhost
• stringxdebug.remote_log =
• integerxdebug.remote_log_level = 7
• stringxdebug.remote_mode = req
• integerxdebug.remote_port = 9000
• integerxdebug.remote_timeout = 200

• xdebug_break() : bool
• xdebug_is_debugger_active() : bool

Settings

integer xdebug.extended_info = 1#

Available in Xdebug < 2.8

Controls whether Xdebug should enforce 'extended_info' mode for the PHPparser; this allows Xdebug to do file/line breakpoints with the remotedebugger. When tracing or profiling scripts you generally want to turn off thisoption as PHP's generated oparrays will increase with about a third of the sizeslowing down your scripts. This setting can not be set in your scripts withini_set(), but only in php.ini.

string xdebug.idekey = *complex*#

Controls which IDE Key Xdebug should pass on to the debugging client orproxy. The IDE Key is only important for use with the DBGp Proxy Tool,although some IDEs are incorrectly picky as to what its value is.

The default is based on the DBGP_IDEKEY environment setting. Ifit is not present, the default falls back to an empty string.

If this setting is set to a non-empty string, it selects its value overDBGP_IDEKEY environment variable as default value.

The internal IDE Key also gets updated through debugging session managementand overrides the value of this setting as is explained in the documentation.

Xdebug Chrome How To Use

string xdebug.remote_addr_header = '#

Introduced in Xdebug >= 2.4

If xdebug.remote_addr_header is configured to be a non-empty string, thenthe value is used as key in the $SERVER superglobal array to determine whichheader to use to find the IP address or hostname to use for 'connecting backto'. This setting is only used in combination with xdebug.remote_connect_backand is otherwise ignored.

boolean xdebug.remote_autostart = false#

Normally you need to use a specific HTTP GET/POST variable to startremote debugging (see Step Debugging). Whenthis setting is set to 1, Xdebug will always attempt to start a remotedebugging session and try to connect to a client, even if the GET/POST/COOKIEvariable was not present.

boolean xdebug.remote_connect_back = false#

Introduced in Xdebug >= 2.1

If enabled, the xdebug.remote_host setting is ignored and Xdebug willtry to connect to the client that made the HTTP request. It checks the$_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'] and $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] variables tofind out which IP address to use.

If xdebug.remote_addr_header is configured, then the $SERVER variable withthe configured name will be checked before the$_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'] and $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] variables. Chapters 17218th grade ela page.

This setting does not apply for debugging through the CLI, as the $SERVERheader variables are not available there.

Please note that there is no filteravailable, and anybody who can connect to the webserver will then be able tostart a debugging session, even if their address does not matchxdebug.remote_host.

integer xdebug.remote_cookie_expire_time = 3600#

Introduced in Xdebug >= 2.1

This setting can be used to increase (or decrease) the time that the remote debugging session stays alive via the session cookie.

boolean xdebug.remote_enable = false#

This switch controls whether Xdebug should try to contact a debug clientwhich is listening on the host and port as set with the settingsxdebug.remote_host andxdebug.remote_port. If a connection can not be established the script will justcontinue as if this setting was 0.

string xdebug.remote_handler = dbgp#

Available in Xdebug < 2.9

Can only be 'dbgp' to represent thedebugger protocol. The DBGpprotocol is the only supported protocol.

string xdebug.remote_host = localhost#

Selects the host where the debug client is running, you can either use ahost name, IP address, or 'unix:///path/to/sock' for a Unix domain socket.This setting is ignored if xdebug.remote_connect_back is enabled.

Support for Unix domain sockets was introduced in Xdebug 2.6.

string xdebug.remote_log = #

Configures a file name to log all Step Debugging connection attempts,failures, and communication.

Enable this functionality by setting the value to a absolute path. Make surethat the system user that PHP runs at (such as www-data if you arerunning with Apache) can create and write to the file.

The file is opened in append-mode,and will therefore not be overwritten by default. There is no concurrencyprotection available.

When successfully enabled, the log file will include any attempt that Xdebugmakes to connect to an IDE:

It includes the opening time (2020-06-21 17:54:05), theIP/Hostname and port Xdebug is trying to connect to(localhost:9000), and whether it succeeded (Connected toclient :-)). The number in brackets ([1603325]) is theProcess ID.

It also logs the debugging communication itself, which starts with the <init XML element:

The fileuri attribute lists the entry point of yourapplication, which can be useful to compare to breakpoint_setcommands to see if path mappings are set-up correctly.

Beyond the <init element, you will find the configuration offeatures:

And continuation commands:

You can read about DBGP - A common debugger protocol specification at its dedicated documation page.

The xdebug.remote_log_level setting controls how much information islogged.

Note: Many Linux distributions now use systemd, whichimplements private tmp directories. This means that when PHPis run through a web server or as PHP-FPM, the /tmp directory isprefixed with something akin to:

integer xdebug.remote_log_level = 7#

Introduced in Xdebug >= 2.8

Configures which logging messages should be emitted by the Step Debugging.

The following levels are supported:

string xdebug.remote_mode = req#

Selects when a debug connection is initiated. This setting can have twodifferent values:

req

Xdebug will try to connect to the debug client as soon as the scriptstarts.

jit

Xdebug will only try to connect to the debug client as soon as an errorcondition occurs.

integer xdebug.remote_port = 9000#

The port to which Xdebug tries to connect on the remote host. Port9000 is the default for both Xdebug and the Command Line Debug Client.As many clients use this port number, it is best to leave this settingunchanged.

integer xdebug.remote_timeout = 200#

Introduced in Xdebug >= 2.6

The amount of time in milliseconds that Xdebug will wait for on anIDE to acknowledge an incoming debugging connection. The default value of 200ms should in most cases be enough. In case you often get dropped debuggingrequests, perhaps because you have a high latency network, or a development boxfar away from your IDE, or have a slow firewall, then you can should increasethis value.

Please note that increasing this value might mean that your requests seem to'hang' in case Xdebug tries to establish a connection, but your IDE is notlistening.

Functions

xdebug_break() : bool#

Xdebug Chrome Extension

This function makes the debugger break on the line it is called from, as if a normal file/line breakpoint was set on this line through the debugger protocol.

Xdebug Helper Crx

The function returns true if a debugging session is (now) active, and the breakpoint was succesfully set. It returns false if a debugging session was not active and could not be activated.

xdebug_is_debugger_active() : bool#

Chrome Xdebug Enabler

Returns true if a debugging session through DBGp is currently active with a client attached; false, if not.