PHP development environment

The PHP development environment includes a PHP engine, a web server, and a database server—the so-called AMP (Apache, MySQL,PHP) technology stack that can be installed as a preconfigured package (like XAMPP for Windows or MAMP for macOS) or manually to the local operating system, in a virtual machine, or in a Docker container.

PhpStorm integrates with your PHP development environment for running, debugging, or unit testing the applications opened in the IDE.

Integrate your development environment with PhpStorm

Configure the PHP interpreter in PhpStorm as described in Configure local PHP interpreters or Configure remote PHP interpreters.
Configure integration with the database server as described in Create a data source.
Set up a debugging engine as described in Debug with PhpStorm: Ultimate Guide.
Set up a testing framework as described in Testing.
Set up the required command-line tools as described in PHP command line tools.

Tutorial: Integrating MAMP with PhpStorm

MAMP is the macOS package comprising Apache HTTP server, MySQL database, PHP interpreter, and some libraries. The word "MAMP" is an acronym, where "M" stands for "Macintosh", meaning it's designed for macOS, and the other letters stand for the package components.

MacOS comes with the pre-installed PHP interpreter and Apache server, which can be configured to work well together following the tutorial published by php.net. PhpStorm-related configuration is similar to the one described in this tutorial. Since installing additional packages and configuring the system environment on your own can be tricky, this guide describes how to get everything set up at once easily in a separate environment with complete MAMP package.

MAMP is a reliable and fast way to set up an environment for PHP programming. It provides all the components required for developing, running, debugging, and unit testing of PHP applications. MAMP is a good alternative to installing and configuring a Web server, a PHP engine, a database server, and a debug engine separately. To start developing, you will only need to download and install MAMP, and start the components using the MAMP control panel. >

Downloading and installing MAMP

Download and install MAMP from the MAMP Downloads page. Once the MAMP archive is downloaded, unpack it and run the installer. The MAMP installation wizard is pretty straightforward, you only need to proceed through the installation steps.

Having installed MAMP and launched its components, we now need to tell the IDE where these components are stored and how they are configured.

MAMP Control Panel

After installation, use the MAMP Control Panel to perform such actions as starting or stopping servers and changing configurations. The MAMP Control Panel application can be found in the Applications/MAMP folder.

Starting and stopping servers

To start the Apache and MySQL servers, click the Start Servers button.

The icons in the top-right corner will become green-colored. Once the servers are started, you can stop them at any time by clicking the Stop Servers button.

The Start Page (http://localhost:8888/MAMP/ by default) will open in the browser. This page contains the information about your environment and provides useful links.

To configure MAMP, click the Preferences... button.

Several options are available:

Modify the Start/Stop Servers configuration on the Start/Stop tab.
Specify the Apache and MySQL ports on the Ports tab.
Specify the PHP version and caching options on the PHP tab.
Set the web server document root on the Web Server tab.

Integrating MAMP with the IDE

Integrating the PHP executable

Let's start by registering the PHP executable from MAMP in PhpStorm. In the Settings dialog (Control+Alt+S), navigate to PHP.

With PhpStorm, we can have several separate PHP interpreters registered in the IDE, depending on the PHP version or PHP configuration needed for the project. All currently registered installations of PHP interpreters are displayed in the CLI Interpreter list:

Add the interpreter installed with MAMP

Click to the right of the list. The CLI Interpreters dialog opens.
In the left-hand pane, click the button on the toolbar.
In the Name field, type the name to identify the current installation, for example MAMP PHP 7.1.
In the PHP executable field, specify the folder where the php (PHP executable) file is stored. Either enter the path manually or click and locate the file.
PhpStorm checks whether the specified folder contains a PHP executable file, detects the PHP version, and displays it in the PHP Info read-only field. PhpStorm also validates that the debugger is configured correctly.

We can now save these settings and select the newly added PHP interpreter for our project:

PhpStorm will now use the PHP installation that was bundled with MAMP.

Integrating the debugger

PhpStorm offers a powerful debugger in which breakpoints can be set and variables can be inspected at runtime. For more information about using PhpStorm's debugger, refer to Debug with PhpStorm: Ultimate Guide.

Note that if you are using the latest MAMP PRO, the httpd.conf, php.ini and my.cnf files should be edited through the Template Editor provided by MAMP PRO. To edit the template files, navigate to File | Edit Template. When MAMP PRO starts the Apache and MySQL servers it uses these templates to create httpd.conf and php.ini files, erasing the previously created ones.

Once you have installed and configured the debugger, you can validate your debugging configuration by performing the steps described in Validate the configuration of a debugging engine.

Integrating the Apache server

Interaction between PhpStorm with Web, FTP, and other servers is handled by the FTP/SFTP/WebDAV Connectivity plugin, which is enabled by default. The IDE accesses servers using the connection settings specified in the registered server access configurations.

Create and manage server access configurations

In the Settings dialog (Control+Alt+S), click Deployment under Build, Execution, Deployment.
Click the on the toolbar, select the Local or mounted folder, and specify the name for the MAMP in the dialog that opens.
After clicking OK, we can specify the path of the Apache's web root /Applications/MAMP/htdocs and the URL of the web server, http://localhost:8888. Note that the actual settings depend on how you have configured the MAMP Apache server in the MAMP configuration or Apache configuration files.
Don't forget to mark the server as default by clicking , so that PhpStorm uses it with browser integration instead of the built-in web server. By clicking Open, we can open the MAMP htdocs folder in the browser and thus verify that the provided settings are correct.

Integrating the MySQL server

PhpStorm allows to connect to the MAMP MySQL database server using the Database Tools and SQL plugin, which is installed and enabled by default. Before you start, make sure that the MySQL server is running on the MAMP PRO Control Panel. If you are using MAMP PRO, also make sure that the Allow network access to MySQL checkbox is selected on the MAMP PRO Control Panel.

From the right-hand side of the IDE, open the Database tool window.

Here, we can create a new connection or Data Source by using the context menu or the toolbar button. We need to specify the JDBC database driver that will be used to connect to our database. For MySQL, we can use the MySQL Connector driver available in the list of drivers. PhpStorm doesn't ship these drivers but we can download the correct JDBC driver by clicking link.

Next, we need to enter the connection details. Alternatively, we can provide the connection string to the MySQL Database in the Database URL field, for example jdbc:mysql://localhost:8889/ or jdbc:mysql://localhost:8889/foodb to connect to the foodb database.

We can also specify the username and password for MySQL. By default, MAMP uses root both as the username and the password.

When using UTF-8 or unicode characters in the username, password or database name, two additional parameters must be added to the connection string: characterEncoding and useUnicode. An example connection string would be jdbc:mysql://localhost:8889?characterEncoding=utf8&useUnicode=true. It may also be required to select a different JDBC driver from the list, that is, com.mysql.jdbc.NonRegisteringDriver.

Having defined the data source, use the Test Connection button to verify the settings and make sure PhpStorm can connect to MySQL.

We can now create tables, run queries, update data and so on. For more information, refer to Database Tools and SQL.

Tutorial: Integrating XAMPP with PhpStorm

XAMPP is a cross-platform package consisting of an Apache HTTP server, MySQL database, PHP interpreter, and Perl interpreter. The word "XAMPP" is an acronym, where "X" stands for "cross", meaning "cross-platform", and the other letters stand for the package components.

XAMPP is a reliable and fast way to set up an environment for PHP programming. It provides all the components required for developing, running, debugging, and unit testing of PHP applications. XAMPP is a good alternative to installing and configuring a Web server, a PHP engine, a database server, and a debug engine separately. To start developing, you will only need to download and install XAMPP, and start the components using the XAMPP control panel.

Downloading and installing XAMPP

Download and install XAMPP from the XAMPP Downloads page. Once the XAMPP archive is downloaded, unpack it and run the installer. The XAMPP installation wizard is pretty straightforward, you only need to proceed through the installation steps.

Having installed XAMPP and launched its components, we now need to tell the IDE where these components are stored and how they are configured.

XAMPP Control Panel

After installation, use the XAMPP Control Panel to perform such actions as starting or stopping servers and changing configurations.

Starting and stopping servers

To start a specific server, click the Start button next to it.

By default, none of the servers such as Apache or MySQL are installed as Windows Services. This means that whenever we want to make use of these servers, we have to manually start them through the XAMPP Control Panel. When a server runs as a Windows Service, it with Windows automatically.

Run a specific server as a Windows Service

Open the XAMPP Control Panel as an administrator.
Stop the server you want to install as a Windows Service by clicking the Stop button.
Click X next to the server and confirm the service installation. Once the installation succeeds, a green checkmark will be displayed next to the server, indicating the server is now running as a Windows Service.

Integrating XAMPP with the IDE

Integrating the PHP executable

Let's start by registering the PHP executable from XAMPP in PhpStorm. In the Settings dialog (Control+Alt+S), navigate to PHP.

Add the interpreter installed with XAMPP

Click to the right of the list. The CLI Interpreters dialog opens.
In the left-hand pane, click the button on the toolbar.
In the Name field, type the name to identify the current installation, for example XAMPP PHP 7.2.
In the PHP executable field, specify the folder where the php (PHP executable) file is stored. Either enter the path manually or click and locate the file.
PhpStorm checks whether the specified folder contains a PHP executable file, detects the PHP version, and displays it in the PHP Info read-only field. PhpStorm also validates that the debugger is configured correctly.

We can now save these settings and select the newly added PHP interpreter for our project:

PhpStorm will now use the PHP installation that was bundled with MAMP.

Integrating the debugger

Once you have installed and configured the debugger, you can validate your debugging configuration by performing the steps described in Validate the configuration of a debugging engine.

Integrating the Apache server

Create and manage server access configurations

In the Settings dialog (Control+Alt+S), click Deployment under Build, Execution, Deployment.
Click on the toolbar, select the Local or mounted folder, and specify a name for the XAMPP server.
After clicking OK, we can specify the path of the Apache's web root C:\xampp\htdocs and the URL of the web server, http://localhost. Note that the actual settings depend on how you have configured the XAMPP Apache server through the C:\xampp\apache\conf\httpd.conf configuration file.
Don't forget to mark the server as default by clicking , so that PhpStorm uses it with browser integration instead of the built-in web server.
By clicking Open, we can open the MAMP htdocs folder in the browser and thus verify that the provided settings are correct.

Integrating the MySQL server

PhpStorm allows you to connect to the XAMPP MySQL database server using the Database Tools and SQL plugin, which is installed and enabled by default. Before you start, make sure that the MySQL server is running on the XAMPP Control Panel.

From the right-hand side of the IDE, open the Database tool window.

Here, we can create a new connection or Data Source by using the context menu or the toolbar button. We need to specify the JDBC database driver that will be used to connect to our database. For MySQL, we can use the MySQL Connector driver available in the list of drivers. PhpStorm doesn't ship these drivers, but we can download the correct JDBC driver by clicking link.

Next, we need to enter the connection details. Alternatively, we can provide the connection string to the MySQL Database in the Database URL field, for example jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/ or jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/foodb to connect to the foodb database.

Note that it is recommended to change the default MySQL username and password after installing XAMPP, which can be done on the http://localhost/security/xamppsecurity.php page.

We can also specify the username and password for MySQL. By default, XAMPP uses root as the username, and a blank password.

Having defined the data source, click the Test Connection button to verify the settings and make sure PhpStorm can connect to MySQL.

We can now create tables, run queries, update data and so on. For more information, refer to Database Tools and SQL.

Last modified: 27 October 2023