In this tutorial, we’ll go thru the steps of installing XDebug 3.1 with PHP 8.1 to enable code step-thru debugging with breakpoints in Visual Studio Code. It is too bad that the out-of-the-box PHP installation does not come with a debugger. Every effective developer needs a powerful debugger. If you are still using print statements, you need to install XDebug. XDebug enables developers the ability to step thru their code line by line and inspect the state of their variables. The XDebug installation process is quite involved and this video can help you with the setup and troubleshoot.
Prerequisites: Local Web Server, PHP 8.x, VSCode. If you don’t have this, check out my video on how to setup your local web server: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GS9q9kMRBI.