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I have just installed Eclipse PDT 3.0.2 (I don't know what Eclipse base this is, Galileo or Helios), and have been enjoying the step up from NetBeans. In getting more serious about my PHP development (I have recently expanded from only ASP.NET), I decided to move from editing my PHP files directly under my Xampp Apache doc root (htdocs), and have created a workspace under my usual source location, c:\development.

It seems to me, from what I have been able to quickly glean from all the horribly disparate resources on debugging PHP files under PDT, that the files need to be debugged under Apache, and thus copied to htdocs. Is there a local debugging option that doesn't require deployment or a PHP server, and how do I get closer to using this type of debugger?

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  • @middus, there is nothing wrong with Apache itself, but I don't want to be using my web server's document root as my workspace or vice versa. Commented Dec 4, 2011 at 17:59
  • 3
    You don't have to. Just set up a vhost for worspace.localhost :). Commented Dec 5, 2011 at 12:14

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I know nothing about Eclipse but I have a strong feeling that you simply want to be able to configure more than one site with Apache, so you can work on a private copy of your project while you host a live release in the same computer.

I suggest you have a look at the Name-based Virtual Host Support chapter in the Apache manual. You can create local domain names in your system's hosts file. Additionally, you can use different local IP addresses (127.0.0.1, 127.0.0.2, 127.0.0.3...) or different ports.

You also mention you've been coding ASP.NET in the past. It's worth nothing that PHP runs fine in almost all web servers, including IIS. You don't need to install Apache and I'm pretty sure that Eclipse doesn't care about your server's vendor.

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Ya, I have it fairly high on my todo list to get PHP working on IIS 7.5, but it was much quicker just to install XAMPP to get WordPress uo and running. Nearly all of my PHP work is WP plugins. Checking the virtual host now, thanks.
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It seems to me […] that the files need to be debugged under Apache, and thus copied to htdocs.

No, you can do what I (and probably thousands of other developers, as the other answers indicate) do:

Leave your development files in your home directory, where they belong, and configure your local Web server so that the DocumentRoot for a name-based virtual host is your development root (or a subdirectory of it).

The minimum Apache configuration would look like so:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName localhost
  ServerAlias 127.0.0.1
  DocumentRoot C:/development/

  <Directory "C:/development">
    # helpful if you want to browse your files
    Options +Indexes
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

The line

127.0.0.1  localhost

should be in your hosts file already, so you should not need to make any changes there. (However, if you think you need another hostname alias, just go for it. I have currently defined 3 additional ones for testing purposes.)

The Apache manual and other default Apache resources should still be available then by default (here: http://localhost/manual/ etc.). For example (I am on Debian GNU/Linux here, so I do not know the exact XAMPP paths):

Alias /manual "C:/Program Files/XAMPP/apache/manual/"

<Directory "C:/Program Files/XAMPP/apache/manual/">
  Options Indexes FollowSymlinks MultiViews
  AllowOverride None
  Order allow,deny
  Allow from all
  AddDefaultCharset off
</Directory>

(It says so – in Linuxese, of course – in my default /etc/apache2/conf.d/apache2-doc.) See the excellent XAMPP documentation for details.

Is there a local debugging option that doesn't require deployment or a PHP server, and how do I get closer to using this type of debugger?

I do not understand that question. There is no "PHP server". There is Zend Server – do you mean that?

If you want to debug PHP scripts for a Web server like Apache, you need to run PHP on that server. In the case of Apache, either as an Apache module, as a CGI handler, or under FastCGI. You only do not need a server if you are developing CLI-PHP scripts. The XAMPP installer should have set that up for you already.

Assuming from your posting that you want to debug PHP scripts that should run on Apache with the PHP module (run a PHP script with <?php phpinfo(); to be sure; I just do not have active PHP debugging experience with anything else), you can configure PDT so that it uses Remote Debugging with the above local virtual host. For that, you also need a server-side debug module for PHP, for example Xdebug or Zend Debugger (the debug clients for both are included in PDT). I had been using Zend Debugger before, but now I am using Xdebug (with PDT 3.0.0v20110516-… in Eclipse 3.7.1 ["Indigo" SR1, released September 2011]¹) because it is free software, packaged with Debian, and highly configurable and capable even though it is for free as well.

This article helped me in particular: PHP remote debugging with Xdebug and Eclipse PDT. See the Xdebug documentation for more (e. g., independence of client IP addresses).

However, a wealth of information about PDT and debugging with PDT can be found at the PDT Downloads site.

Bottom line: If you are debugging on localhost, you do not have to deploy your code because you have deployed your code already, just by having it in or below the DocumentRoot. Eclipse PDT does not care where the remote code is located; it only accesses a resource via an HTTP URI. If that starts with http://localhost/, so be it :)

(Copying the resources around carries with it the risk of inconsistencies and accidentally overwriting Apache files, so do not do that.)

¹ There is no PHP package for Eclipse Indigo, but you can start e. g. with Eclipse 3.7.1 Classic and install PDT on top of it using the Update Manager. Just select the "Indigo" (or whatever) repository, then "PHP Development Tools" under "Programming Languages". Dependencies should be resolved automatically. See also PDT/Installation.

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I don't remember if Eclipse has a local PHP debugging option or not. But I think Zend Studio (which is based on Eclipse PDT) comes with its own PHP binaries. I've never tried to use them though.

Your best bet is to create a new workspace, which I explained how to do here: publishing php files from eclipse to apache htdocs

If you need to setup vhosts (Virtual Hosts) on your XAMPP installation, this is a great and easy to understand tutorial.

If you want suggestions to alternative IDEs then I would go with Zend Studio ($299) or Rapid PHP 2011. While I've never used Rapid PHP 2011, it does look somewhat promising, has many of the same features as many popular IDEs including debugging. Note that in my opinion, it appears to be not quite as professional as Eclipse/Zend (which, again, is why I always recommend those two above others).

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I assumed the question was more about 'can I debug in PDT a CLI script'. If that's the case then, yes, you can.

All you have to do is edit the PHP.INI file that your CLI is using and make sure that XDebug is enabled for the CLI and that xdebug.remote_autostart is set to 1. It's quite possible that the CLI PHP is using a different INI file from Apache, so be sure that you're using the correct one.

Finally, in PDT click 'Debug Project' and debug it as a web script, even if it isn't. The important thing is that you essentially are telling PDT to start listening. Once that's done, you should be able to run the script from the CLI and have PDT kick in at the appropriate time. The xdebug.remote_autostart is key, though.

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