Debugging PHP

[Dave Moore]

Hi All,
I've just started writing PHP scripts. I was wondering whether there was
any sensible debugging facilities that I'm not aware of. Basically, my usual
development procedure involves writing the script and then testing using IE.
However, it appears that unless the PHP is perfect (ie. devoid of any
syntactical errors) then nothing at all is output to the browser. Personally
I find this very frustrating as there's no clue as to where the error is. I
then commence on a wild goose chase putting in various debugging 'echo'
statements and commenting out various chunks of PHP code until something
works. There must be a better approach than this.

Are there any option or selections I can make to give me some debugging
output?. Is there a parser I can use to ensure there are no syntactical
errors before running the script?. Or a PHP debugger I can use to step
through the code command by command?.

Thanks,
Dave

[Erich Schmidt]

Dave Moore wrote:

Are there any option or selections I can make to give me some debugging output?. Is there a parser I can use to ensure there are no syntactical errors before running the script?. Or a PHP debugger I can use to step through the code command by command?.

I evaluated NuSphere phped and Zend Studio last year. They both do have
debugging support, but I like phped better. Generally, it's better and
more responsitive while Zend Studio is slow and resource hog. I
purchased phped then and it helps me to write better code.

Both are nice products however, you may want to try them on your
project.

-Erich

[johnjawed]

Sorry for the late reply.

No unfortunately I do not. I can however tell you that Zend is probably
your best bet as they an inherit better understanding of the Zend
Engine (2), which is a core part of PHP. Because of this fact, I trust
it to be more "up to date" and better supported in terms of future PHP
(I'm a bleeding edge kind of guy, so that might not be the case with
you).

Prices are about the same, I think Zend might provide support longer
support for you though, it's been a while since I checked the pricing
charts though. Well I take that back, I don't really remember as my
company bought the license on my behalf, all I know is that I have had
complimentary product updates thus far. ;-)

The debugger I can compare Zend Studio to is MS Visual Studio, in that
they basically have the same features and interaction (right down to
the shortcut keys if you select the MS VS keyboard layout option).

However, I did run into some trivial problems with getting things
working at home with the debugger, due to my router and some drive
mapping, but at the end I got it working just as I'd like...plus the
Firefox toolbar just seals the deal for me :-)

Zend Enhanced support is really reliable and some of the most
knowledgable people I have worked with in support. I've heard good
things about eclipse from fellow programmers at work, but I couldn't
even get it to start up on my machine so I can't comment personally.

[Edward Pearson]

Chung Leong <ch***********@ hotmail.com> wrote:

That won't help when there's a parse error. The solution here is to
make sure display_error is set to "on" in php.ini and error_reporting
to something sensible, like E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE.

if you're looking to debug your scripts i strongly advise you to
download Komodo personal, search on the internet, and get a premotion
code and a free copy, works with the dbg debugger and is flawless for me.