Click the Debug button again and if everything is setup correctly Visual Studio Code will now be in debugging mode!įor the debugger to be useful we now need to add some breakpoints in our code. For our purposes we can just leave it as is and not worry about it again. The first time the Debug button is selected it will create a debugging configuration file. Choose the Debug View from the left hand side and then click the Debug button to configure our debugging environment. In Visual Studio Code, select “File” and then “Open Folder” and choose the folder containing your PHP code. Now we need to setup Visual Studio Code to allow debugging. This wizard allows you to paste the contents of a phpinfo() call and it will then give you exact instructions on what files to download, where to place them, and what needs to be added to you php.ini file to install the extension correctly. If the downloading of these files and modification of your php.ini seems too daunting you can also visit. To do this visit and follow the instructions. The next step is to install the Xdebug PHP extension. Once the debugging extension is installed Visual Studio Code will restart. Then type “PHP Debug” and choose the extension aptly named “PHP Debug” and press enter.

In the drop down box type “ext install” and press enter. To do this, choose “View” on the toolbar and select “Command Palette”. Once Code is installed and running you will need to install the PHP debugging extension. To get started first visit to download and install Visual Studio Code. While Code does not feature out of the box debugging for all languages, extensions have been developed for most of the popular languages including PHP. Visual Studio Code runs on Linux, Windows, and OSX and also features integrated debugging for almost any programming language. Microsoft has recently released an open source code editor named Visual Studio Code. Luckily there are a few open source tools out there that will give PHP developers the same debugging experience without the use of an expensive IDE. But these commercial applications are usually quite expensive and operating system dependent. Sure, there are quite a few commercial applications that help with debugging PHP. Net and Java developers often have IDEs that contain full debugging support, PHP developers may sometimes feel left out. But we all know that if we want quality software debugging is a crucial aspect of development. No developer enjoys debugging web applications.

Visual studio code debugger file