September « 2009 « John Henry Thompson Blog

PHP IDE search

Filed under: Webdev — admin @ 10:52 am September 10, 2009

Notes from my search for an IDE for PHP.

I searched the web for info on PHP IDE:

“Seven great PHP IDEs compared”

“The Big PHP IDE Test: Why Use One And Which To Choose“

I need PHP IDE for MacOSX 10.5 / Intel.

You need a local server setup. I choose to use macports to install apache/php/mysql.

This was recommended buy fixing-my-php-woes-with-macports

My brother recommended mamp, but since I had already used macports for another project I stuck with it.

Macports puts installed in /opt/local/

I have PHP 5.2.9, mysql 5.0.77

I considered to first try zend studio but after installing I let the free trail lapse. Since it cost about $400, I decided to try another komodo commercial IDE, which is about $300.

Following the article “Remote PHP Debugging on Intel-based Macs with Komodo“, I was able to get it running debug my local word press install. Success!

For the Komodo, the xdebug module it came with did not work. I had to download and compiled xdebug:

sudo wget http://xdebug.org/files/xdebug-2.0.5.tgz

sudo tar xzf xdebug-2.0.5.tgz

cd xdebug-2.0.5

phpize

./configure –enable-xdebug

make

mkdir /usr/local/xdebug

cp modules/xdebug.so /usr/local/xdebug/

I added the following lines to /opt/local/etc/php.ini

JHT-macpro:bin jht$ grep xdebug /opt/local/etc/php.ini

;extension_dir = “/opt/local/xdebug/”

zend_extension=/opt/local/xdebug/xdebug.so

xdebug.remote_enable=1

xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp

xdebug.remote_mode=req

xdebug.remote_host=127.0.0.1

xdebug.remote_port=9000

xdebug.idekey=komodo

Note I had to use the full path name to xdebug.so.

I next tried Netbean, a free IDE from Sun microsystems. I was able to use the same xdebug from Komodo install.

Netbean looks like the winner. Its free, well supported by a large company, and passes my initial test: debug wordpress on local install.