Note: This post focuses on developing a Drupal website on a MacOS machine using MAMP & MAMP Pro hosting software, Apache HTTP Server, and MySQL Backend. The goal is to debug the PHP file to access the variables available in a Twig template.

Turning on X-Debug for PHP (Pro MAMP)

If you are developing using a Pro MAMP: simply turn the the “Xdebug (Debugger)” setting under the “Language > PHP” tab (on the sidebar):

2023.11.23 - 162521

Then click “Save”, and start/restart MAMP, and proceed to phpinfo page for mamp, and scroll down; At the roughly middle of the phpinfo page, you should be seeing something like this (link to image of full xdebug):

2023.11.23 - 162229

Turning on X-Debug for PHP (Non-Pro MAMP)

If you are developing using a non-pro MAMP software: first turn the MAMP off, then configure the php.ini file located at the directories (noting that when you change to a different php version, you will have to repeat the step, adding the lines in to the corresponding php.ini for the selected version):

  • /Applications/MAMP/conf/php[version]/php.ini
  • /Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php[version]/conf/php.ini

At the bottom of the file, you will see something like:

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14

[xdebug]
; zend_extension="/Applications/MAMP/bin/php/.../lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20220829/xdebug.so"
xdebug.mode=debug
xdebug.start_with_request=yes
;
; Unlike Xdebug 2, where there was an enabling setting for each feature, with
; Xdebug 3 you put Xdebug into a specific mode, which can be configured with the
; xdebug.mode setting.
;
; This setting, in combination with xdebug.start_with_request is the new way to
; enable functionality, and to configure when Xdebug's feature activates.
;
; Please also note: Xdebug's default debugging port has changed from 9000 to 9003.
; xdebug.client_port=9003

In order to turn on the xdebug extension for php, simply uncomment the line for zend_extension:

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14

[xdebug]
zend_extension="/Applications/MAMP/bin/php/.../lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20220829/xdebug.so"
xdebug.mode=debug
xdebug.start_with_request=yes
;
; Unlike Xdebug 2, where there was an enabling setting for each feature, with
; Xdebug 3 you put Xdebug into a specific mode, which can be configured with the
; xdebug.mode setting.
;
; This setting, in combination with xdebug.start_with_request is the new way to
; enable functionality, and to configure when Xdebug's feature activates.
;
; Please also note: Xdebug's default debugging port has changed from 9000 to 9003.
; xdebug.client_port=9003

Or, if you wish to make further customization to the xdebug, here’s an example configuration to quickly copy from:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

[xdebug]
zend_extension           = "/Applications/MAMP/bin/php/.../lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20220829/xdebug.so"
xdebug.remote_autostart  = 1
xdebug.remote_enable     = 1
xdebug.remote_host       = localhost
xdebug.remote_port       = 9000
xdebug.remote_handler    =d bgp

Then start/restart MAMP, and proceed to phpinfo page for mamp, and scroll down; At the roughly middle of the phpinfo page, you should be seeing something like this (link to image of full xdebug):

2023.11.23 - 162229

In case this is not working, try confirming you are changing the right configuration file (also via phpinfo)

2023.11.23 - 162328

Reference