Re: [tlug] Recommendations for PHP debuggers?

[Dave M G <martin@example.com>]

Jim, Josh, Stephen,

Thank you all for your advice.

Stephen said:
> Maybe Josh and others will have a different opinion, but I think you
> can drop the [OT] for most of your questions.
Okay, that's good to know. Thank you for correcting me.

Of course, fate being what it is, it is now inevitable that I will post 
something that actually is OT, but not mark it as such. I have 
officially been jinxed.

Stephen also said:
> The instructions on the main DBG site look straightforward and clear
> to me. 
I had to go back and give a the site a harder look after reading that.

And I guess I did find some instructions:
http://support.nusphere.com/viewtopic.php?t=576

But they are far from clear.

For example, it says right off the bat:
"locate debugger module for your platform and php version in 
phped/debugger/server subdirectory, for example ... 
debugger/server/Linux in case of linux. You will find many 
php_dbg.dll-x.x.x for different versions of php starting with php-4.0.6 
and some tar balls containing modules for Linux (glibc 2.3 and higher)"

"Copy selected module into extension_dir directory on the server"

Basically I just don't understand that at all. But I thought I'd get my 
feet wet by trying to find some of these directories they are talking about:

dave@example.com:~$ locate extension_dir
dave@example.com:~$ locate debugger/server/Linux
dave@example.com:~$

It appears to my easily shaken newbie eyes that I have nothing like what 
they are talking about. What's up with that?

Josh said:
> PHP has a command-line thingy, right? 
And also said:
> Since you know PHP, can you confirm that PHP itself provides no option
> to its command-line interpreter that gives you an interactive
> debugger?
I think there is a module or something to get responses from the command 
line. But I'm trying to go GUI here. Not just because I'm a GUI junkie, 
but because command lines and use of things like var_dump() are very 
labour intensive for doing things like watching variables and stepping 
through code. I like to be able to set up break points and not have to 
manipulate my script and create my own error handlers. Not least because 
half the time I make errors in how I set up the very code that I created 
to check the code I wanted to debug.

Jim said:
> The Komodo IDE can be used to locally or remotely debug PHP
I forgot to mention Komodo earlier, but I had looked at it. I discounted 
it because it has a very odd way of handling forms and sessions. If you 
create a web form, and then want to debug the script that handles the 
$_POST data, you don't simply execute the form and have Komodo trap the 
user data. Instead you have to input the user data via a manual 
interface within Komodo. I know I'm not explaining it well, but that's 
part of the problem.

I think basically what it comes down to is that the Komodo developers 
wanted a way to make it so that Komodo wouldn't need to have anything 
installed on the server to facillitate the ability to debug scripts with 
sessions and stuff. But the trade off is that you're not really using 
sessions when debugging, and and that kind of simulation scares me 
because of it's disconnect with the reality of how PHP works.

--
Dave M G
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS
Kernel 2.6.17.7
Pentium D Dual Core Processor
PHP 5, MySQL 5, Apache 2