I use PHP Tools for Visual Studio and I really like it. Mostly because I'm primarily an asp.net developer, and I feel most comfortable in Visual Studio. It's great that I can use TFS in Visual Studio to manage php files. It is also nice that some of the common CodeRush functions work (for example, drop markers). I found their support good. It costs money, but it is reasonable.
To debug server-side operation, follow these steps: http://xdebug.org/docs/install .
In Visual Studio, you can go to the PHP tool options from the Tools menu. Tools-Options-PHP Tools.
One thing to be aware of is which php.ini file is used: IIS uses this php.ini:
% ProgramFiles% \ PHP \ v5.3 \ php.ini
This php.ini is used when you debug Visual Studio:
% ProgramFiles% \ IIS Express \ PHP \ v5.3 \ php.ini
I mentioned one more thing, as it was painful to understand; I need to debug code in the functions.php file of WordPress. In order to get debugging work with functions.php functions, I first start the VS debugger (by clicking Debug-Start Debugging) in a small test file, for example:
<?php phpinfo() ; ?>
With the debugger running, breakpoints will fall into functions.php functions. Keep in mind that debugging WordPress like this will only work in your default browser.
Dwayne driskill
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