pugdebug is a standalone debugging client for PHP applications that uses Xdebug as the debugging engine.

A python 3.5, PyQt5 project.

NOTE: I am maintaining a fork!

pip install pugdebug

pip install -r requirements.txt

./app.py

To bring up the Settings window, navigate to Files -> Settings (shortcut: Ctrl+S).

The Path section refers to the path settings.

The Root under the Path section is the root path where the project you want to debug is located.

The Maps from under the Path section is for when the project you want to debug is under a virtual machine, like Vagrant. Here you would enter the path of the project under that VM.

For example, if a project I'm working on is in /home/robert/wwww/pugdebug and that maps to /var/www under the VM, the Root would be set to /home/robert/www/pugdebug and the Maps from would be set to /var/www.

The Host setting should be the IP address of the machine on which pugdebug runs. In most cases (like vagrant) it is perfectly fine to leave this field blank.

The Port setting is the port number on which Xdebug will attempt to connect to the machine on which pugdebug runs. The default port is 9000.

The IDE Key setting allows to filter out messages from Xdebug based on this value.

Break at first line tells the debugger should it break on the first line or not (on CMS is better to disable it).

Max depth, Max children and Max data settings control the amount of information about variables is retrieved from Xdebug.

• F1 - Start Listening
• F2 - Stop Listening
• F3 - Stop
• F4 - Detach
• F5 - Run
• F6 - Step Over
• F7 - Step In
• F8 - Step Out
• Ctrl+N - New project
• Ctrl+F - Search
• Ctrl+T - Search for file
• Ctrl+G - Go to line
• Ctrl+S - Show settings
• Alt+F4 - Exit application

To start debugging, click the Start listening button in the top left corner.

pugdebug then listens to all connections on the Port provided, and if the connection has the IDE Key matching with what is configured, it will start debugging the PHP request from that connection.

In the case if there is already a debugging in progress, the new connection will be queued and once the debugging of the current connection is done, the new one will be debugged.

This allows pugdebug to debug multiple requests (think ajax).

Load a web project in a browser and start a HTTP debugging session.

pugdebug should pick up that request and display the index file of the web project, while stopping the execution on the first line.

Using the Run, Over, In, Out continuation commands allows stepping through the PHP code.

Setting breakpoints is possible by double clicking the line where a breakpoint is needed.

The correspoding line number should be highlighted and a new breakpoint should be listed in the breakpoint viewer (bottom right corner).

Double clicking the line with a breakpoint should remove that breakpoint.

The Stop action will stop debugging the current request and tell Xdebug to stop further execution of the PHP script that is being debugged.

The Detach action will detach the debugger from the current request, which allows to stop debugging but also let the PHP script finish as it normally would.

The Stop listening action will tell pugdebug to stop listening to new incomming connections.

There is a wiki page with simple examples of Xdebug configurations that should help with setting up Xdebug for remote debugging.

Setting up the development environment should be needed only when you want to help out with developing pugdebug itself.

The main dependencies are Python 3.7, QT5, SIP and PyQt5.

As WordPress uses a hook system Break on the first line can create issues because open the first file and not where it is the breakpoint as example, so it is better to disable that option.