View source for Mediawiki debugging

== Installing xdebug ==

With [http://www.xdebug.org/ xdebug] it is possible to get detailed debugging information from parsed php scripts if the slightest error message is reported by php, i.e. error notice. Install it as follows:
<source lang="bash">
# install xdebug
sudo pecl install xdebug
</source>
This downloads and compiles xdebug and creates some output/version messages. To activate xdebug, you finally have to add the following link path in the php.ini file and restart:
<source lang="bash">
# edit php.ini with nano
sudo nano /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
</source>
<blockquote>
<source lang="ini">
; xdebug extension (installed Mon Mar  7 23:38:32 CET 2011)
zend_extension= "/path/to/lib/xdebug.so"
</source>
</blockquote>
<source lang="bash">
# let nginx/apache read the php.ini anew:
 sudo /usr/sbin/apache2ctl -k graceful && sudo service nginx restart && sudo service php5-fpm restart
</source>
Now with each notice error message a detailed debugging information is given.

== Uninstalling xdebug ==

(1) Remove the linked xdebug.so library path in php.ini:
<source lang="bash">
sudo nano /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
</source>
<blockquote>
<source lang="ini">
; remove/comment out in /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
; zend_extension= "/path/to/lib/xdebug.so"
</source>
</blockquote>
<source lang="bash">
# let apache/nginx read the php.ini anew:
 sudo /usr/sbin/apache2ctl -k graceful && sudo service nginx restart && sudo service php5-fpm restart
</source>
(2) The uninstall works the same way as the install does:
<source lang="bash">
# uninstall xdebug
sudo pecl install xdebug
</source>
[[Category: Programming]]
[[Category: Debugging]]
[[Category: Software documentation]]
[[Category:MediaWiki]]