Setting breakpoints in PHP - is this possible?

I have some server side code I want to debug (coming from C++
background). I am using echo statements but for some reason, no output
is being generated. It would be much simpler if I could set breakpoints
to see the variable 'states' when a script is being run - is there any
developement IDE/Tool out there that helps me do this?

if the answer is no (which i suspect it is), does anyone know of any
likely reasons as to why my echo statements are not outputting text on
the browser?

On 2 May, 15:32, Ronald Raygun <inva...@domain.com> wrote:
> I have some server side code I want to debug (coming from C++
> background). I am using echo statements but for some reason, no output
> is being generated. It would be much simpler if I could set breakpoints
> to see the variable 'states' when a script is being run - is there any
> developement IDE/Tool out there that helps me do this?
>
> if the answer is no (which i suspect it is),
You suspect wrong.

What I am very surprised about is why, when you searched google for:

php breakpoints
or
php ide
or
php ide debugger

as you obviously did before posting here, you totally failed too see
all the hits it came back with!

xdebug is a good starting point. I use it in conjunction with notepad+
+

Eclipse is another good IDE for this purpose.

If you find out why your google connection isn't working, you'll find
all the rest.

..oO(Ronald Raygun)

>I have some server side code I want to debug (coming from C++
>background). I am using echo statements but for some reason, no output
>is being generated. It would be much simpler if I could set breakpoints
>to see the variable 'states' when a script is being run - is there any
>developement IDE/Tool out there that helps me do this?

Xdebug
Zend Debugger

Both can be used with the Eclipse IDE for example.

>if the answer is no (which i suspect it is), does anyone know of any
>likely reasons as to why my echo statements are not outputting text on
>the browser?

Do you get a result from an echo statement at the very beginning of the
script? What's the setting of error_reporting and display_errors in your
php.ini? The first should be E_ALL|E_STRICT, the second "1" or "on".

Micha

Ronald Raygun <invalid@domain.com> writes:

> I have some server side code I want to debug (coming from C++
> background). I am using echo statements but for some reason, no output
> is being generated. It would be much simpler if I could set
> breakpoints to see the variable 'states' when a script is being run -
> is there any developement IDE/Tool out there that helps me do this?
>
> if the answer is no (which i suspect it is), does anyone know of any
> likely reasons as to why my echo statements are not outputting text on
> the browser?

There are some pretty good debuggers out there as the
other folks said; however, as far as not seeing anything on your
screen --- it probably means a serious error is occuring even before
the script gets to your echo. You want to make sure screen display
of errors is on. Check the documentation, but try adding these two
lines to a .htaccess file in the same directory with the application:

php_flag display_errors on
php_value error_reporting 2047

That should get you something!

--
John
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