Profiling with Xdebug
tip
Before profiling with Xdebug, download, install and configure the components of the PHP development environment. Normally, these are a PHP engine, a web server, and the Xdebug tool.
Open the active php.ini file in the editor:
In the Settings dialog () , click PHP.
On the PHP page that opens, click
next to the CLI Interpreter field.In the CLI Interpreters dialog that opens, the Configuration file read-only field shows the path to the active php.ini file. Click Open in Editor.
Enable the Xdebug profiler mode by one of the following ways:
To permanently enable the profiler, set the
xdebug.mode(for Xdebug 3) orxdebug.profiler_enable(for Xdebug 2) setting toprofile:Xdebug 3Xdebug 2xdebug.mode = profileTo enable triggering the profiler from the browser by using the XDEBUG_PROFILE cookie or a GET/POST parameter, set the following settings depending on the Xdebug version used:
Xdebug 3Xdebug 2xdebug.mode = profile xdebug.start_with_request = trigger
Specify the location for storing profiling snapshots:
Add the
xdebug.output_dir(Xdebug 3) orxdebug.profiler_output_dir(Xdebug 2) setting and specify the path to the directory as its value.Xdebug 3Xdebug 2xdebug.output_dir = <path to output folder>Add the
xdebug.profiler_output_namesetting and specify the name of the file to store snapshots in as its value.The default value is
cachegrind.out.%p, where%pis the name format specifier. Use the default value or define a custom file format according to the supported format specifiers. Note that the name should always be cachegrind.out.xdebug.profiler_output_name = cachegrind.out.%p
Use the
XDEBUG_PROFILEcookie variable or the?XDEBUG_PROFILE=1URL parameter as described in Xdebug documentation.Use the Xdebug Helper browser extension (for example, Xdebug Helper by JetBrains for Chrome).
Do one of the following:
To start debugging an entire application, create debug configuration of the type PHP Web Page, and launch debugging by clicking
.For more information, refer to Debug with a PHP web page debug configuration.
To debug a specific PHP HTTP request, define a debug configuration of the type PHP HTTP Request, and launch debugging by clicking
.For more information, refer to Debug a PHP HTTP request.
To initiate a zero-configuration debugging session:
Toggle the Start Listen PHP Debug Connections button
on the PhpStorm toolbar or status bar so that it changes to 
. After that PhpStorm starts listening to the port of the debugging engine used in the current project. Debugging ports are set at the PhpStorm level on the PHP | Debug page of the Settings dialog () . Open the starting page of your application in the browser, choose the Start debugger bookmark to activate the debugging engine from the browser, re-load the current page (the starting page of the application), and then return to PhpStorm.
Set up Xdebug in PhpStorm.
Create a custom run configuration for the PHP script file and specify the following Interpreter options in it:
-dxdebug.mode=profile -dxdebug.start_with_request=yes -dxdebug.output_dir=/Users/{username}/{path-to-project-directory} -dxdebug.profiler_output_name=cachegrind.out.%p
Launch the created run configuration by clicking Run from the Run/Debug Configurations dialog or using your preferred way of running application configurations.
Every time you launch such run configuration, PhpStorm generates a
cachegrind.out.%pprofiler snapshot and stores it in the specified output folder.
In the main menu, go to .
In the Select Xdebug profiler snapshot dialog that opens, choose the folder and the file where the profiling data is stored.
PhpStorm presents the collected profiling data in a separate editor tab with the name of the selected profiler output file.
You can select and open several snapshots at a time. In this case, PhpStorm aggregates the profiling data from all the selected snapshots and presents the averaged result in a single tab.