The Interactive PHP Debugger

Joe Watkins

Last update: Oct 9, 2022

Related tags

Debugging and Profiling phpdbg

Overview

The interactive PHP debugger

Implemented as a SAPI module, phpdbg can exert complete control over the environment without impacting the functionality or performance of your code.

phpdbg aims to be a lightweight, powerful, easy to use debugging platform for PHP 5.4+

Historical Repository

phpdbg was developed here, then merged into php-src: This repository is no longer used.

Please open issues on bugsnet, and send pull requests directly to php-src.

Features

Stepthrough Debugging
Flexible Breakpoints (Class Method, Function, File:Line, Address, Opcode)
Easy Access to PHP with built-in eval()
Easy Access to Currently Executing Code
Userland API
SAPI Agnostic - Easily Integrated
PHP Configuration File Support
JIT Super Globals - Set Your Own!!
Optional readline Support - Comfortable Terminal Operation
Remote Debugging Support - Bundled Java GUI
Easy Operation - See Help :)

Planned

Improve Everything :)

Installation

To install phpdbg, you must compile the source against your PHP installation sources, and enable the SAPI with the configure command.

cd /usr/src/php-src/sapi
git clone https://github.com/krakjoe/phpdbg
cd ../
./buildconf --force
./configure --enable-phpdbg
make -j8
make install-phpdbg

Where the source directory has been used previously to build PHP, there exists a file named config.nice which can be used to invoke configure with the same parameters as were used by the last execution of configure.

Note: PHP must be configured with the switch --with-readline for phpdbg to support history, autocompletion, tab-listing etc.

Command Line Options

The following switches are implemented (just like cli SAPI):

-n ignore php ini
-c search for php ini in path
-z load zend extension
-d define php ini entry

The following switches change the default behaviour of phpdbg:

-v disables quietness
-s enabled stepping
-e sets execution context
-b boring - disables use of colour on the console
-I ignore .phpdbginit (default init file)
-i override .phpgdbinit location (implies -I)
-O set oplog output file
-q do not print banner on startup
-r jump straight to run
-E enable step through eval()
-l listen ports for remote mode
-a listen address for remote mode
-S override SAPI name

Note: Passing -rr will cause phpdbg to quit after execution, rather than returning to the console.

Getting Started

See the website for tutorials/documentation

http://php.net/phpdbg

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Comments

New help updates

As per IRC discussions, here is the pull request for these changes. Note that scope of these is krakjoe/phpdbg#59 and krakjoe/phpdbg#69. Sorry about that, but I had to include the first to implement the second.

Also note that this branch is a few commits behind krakjoe/phpdbg/master so you'll need to merge these changes. There's also a could of TODOs outstanding as discussed in krakjoe/phpdbg#69.

opened by TerryE 2
Fix phpdbg.1 man page installation when build != src directory
Some PHP compilation methods (e.g. Redhat PHP rpms) make SAPI's build a clean directory. The addition of the phpdbg.1 man page breaks this method, as it's assuming the build directory is the source directory.

This affects a build I'm creating for PHP 5.6.0RC2 https://github.com/webtatic-rpms/php56w/blob/master/php56.spec#L1344

This PR fixes the problem by forcing the Makefile to get the man page from the source directory.

an example I think recreates the problem:

cd /usr/src/php-src/sapi git clone https://github.com/krakjoe/phpdbg cd ../ ./buildconf --force mkdir ./build-phpdbg pushd ./build-phpdbg ln -s ../configure ./configure --enable-phpdbg popd make -C build-phpdbg -j8 make -C build-phpdbg install-phpdbg
opened by andytson 1
Remove phpdbg_help_header() output, too verbose
Hello :-),

Each time we type help …, the [Welcome to phpdbg, the interactive PHP debugger, v%s] message is printed. I think this is too verbose. This message is printed when we start the REPL, no need to print it each time we ask some help.

After a short discussion on IRC, it seems the header is printed just to get the version number. Thus, I propose this patch to simplify it a bit:

the phpdbg_help_header macro unfolds to NULL, in this way, we didn't break the existing code and allow the reuse of this macro,

the phpdbg_help_footer macro now includes the version number.

Also, I am planning to (i) add the help version command, (ii) expose the phpdbg version through a PHP constant (maybe PHPDBG_VERSION_ID, to be consistent with PHP_VERSION_ID, (iii) add a phpdbg option to get the version directly (-v is already taken to enable oplog output, maybe -V could be a good candidate).

Thoughts?
opened by Hywan 1