PHP debugging session
Before you start debugging, make sure that you have a debugging engine installed and configured properly. IntelliJ IDEA supports debugging with two most popular tools: Xdebug and Zend Debugger. These tools cannot be used simultaneously because they block each other. To avoid this problem, you need to update the corresponding sections in the php.ini file as described in Configure Xdebug and Configure Zend Debugger.
With IntelliJ IDEA, a PHP debugging session can be initiated either through a run/debug configuration or without it. The latter approach is also called Zero-configuration debugging. IntelliJ IDEA supports three main ways to initiate a PHP debugging session:
You create a PHP Web Page debug configuration, and then IntelliJ IDEA uses its settings to launch the application, open the browser, and activate the debugging engine.
You create a PHP HTTP Request debug configuration or an HTTP request in the code editor, IntelliJ IDEA generates a request on its base, and then accesses a specific page through this request.
Zero-configuration debugging, when no debug configuration is created at all. Instead, you open the starting page of your PHP application in the browser manually and then activate the debugging engine from the browser, while IntelliJ IDEA listens to incoming debugger connections.
No matter which method you choose, you can specify the scripts requests to which you want IntelliJ IDEA to ignore during debugging. This approach can be useful, when your application contains scripts that use AJAX. Suppose you have a menu-ajax-script.php that "reloads" a part of your web page. This script works properly so you do not need to debug it. However, this script is still requested during the debugging session. To have incoming connections to this script ignored, add the menu-ajax-script.php script to the skipped paths list.
When using Xdebug, you can also debug PHP applications in the multiuser mode via Xdebug proxy servers.
Install the PHP plugin
This functionality relies on the PHP plugin that should be installed and enabled in your IDE.
The plugin is available only in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate.
Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select
.Switch to the Marketplace tab and use the search field to find the PHP plugin.
Click Install and restart the IDE if prompted.
Pause a debugging session
From the main menu, choose
.Click on the Debug toolbar.
This action is not available for Run/Debug Configuration: Attach to Node.js/Chrome.
Resume a debugging session
From the main menu, select
.Click in the Debug tool window or press F9.
Restart a debugger session
Click in the Debug tool window or press Ctrl+F5.
Terminate a debugger session
Click the in the Debug tool window. Alternatively, press Ctrl+F2 and select the process to terminate (if there are two or more of them).