PHP

Setting up VS Code

Install PHP and XDebug

First install the software. This was done in the WSL

sudo apt install -y php8.5 php8.5-cli php8.5-common php8.5-mbstring php8.5-xml php8.5-curl php8.5-mysql
sudo apt install php-xdebug

Check your php now has Debug. You should see Xdebug listed

php -v

Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Built by Debian
Zend Engine v4.5.3, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Xdebug v3.5.0, Copyright (c) 2002-2025, by Derick Rethans
    with Zend OPcache v8.5.3, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

Change Your Xdebug.ini

Find you wsl ip with

hostname -I

172.28.58.213

Find your xdebug.ini

php -i | grep 'xdebug.ini'

/etc/php/8.5/cli/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini,

Now amend your xdebug.ini to have this and remember to use your ip

zend_extension=xdebug.so

xdebug.mode = develop,debug
#xdebug.start_with_request = trigger
xdebug.start_with_request = yes
xdebug.client_port = 9003

xdebug.client_host = 172.28.58.213

Set up VS Code

Install extension Php Debug by Xdebug and create a launch.json

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Listen for Xdebug",
      "type": "php",
      "request": "launch",
      "port": 9003
    }
  ]
}

Note the robot wanted me to put this in the launch.json file and it stopped it working

"pathMappings": {
  "/": "${workspaceFolder}"
}

Running in VS Code

For me I simply pressed F5 to run the launch.json and ran the code with

php -S localhost:1701

You need to go to you browser and access you php application. Mine starts with index.php to http://localhost:1701. You must press F5 before starting code because the code needs to find the debugger when starting. For me I saw this when working

[Thu Mar 12 13:29:40 2026] PHP 8.5.3 Development Server (http://localhost:1701) started
[Thu Mar 12 13:29:47 2026] 127.0.0.1:37794 Accepted
[Thu Mar 12 13:29:47 2026] 127.0.0.1:37794 [200]: GET /
[Thu Mar 12 13:29:47 2026] 127.0.0.1:37794 Closing
[Thu Mar 12 13:29:47 2026] 127.0.0.1:37808 Accepted

And this when failed

[Thu Mar 12 13:26:38 2026] PHP 8.5.3 Development Server (http://localhost:1701) started
[Thu Mar 12 13:26:51 2026] 127.0.0.1:39096 Accepted
[Thu Mar 12 13:26:51 2026] Xdebug: [Step Debug] Could not connect to debugging client. Tried: 172.28.58.213:9003 (through xdebug.client_host/xdebug.client_port).
[Thu Mar 12 13:26:51 2026] 127.0.0.1:39096 [200]: GET /
[Thu Mar 12 13:26:51 2026] 127.0.0.1:39096 Closing
[Thu Mar 12 13:26:51 2026] 127.0.0.1:39106 Accepted

Other Stuff I installed

We need to install

sudo apt install php-cli composer php-xml

You will need to set up php-cs-fixer first. Extensions suggested are

• PHP Intelephense
• PHP Getters & Setters
• PHP debug
• PHP CS Fixer
• Twig Language 2
• SQLTools

Creating Project With Composer

To create a project you need to run the following. The only tricky bit is the name where they want vendor/name e.g. bibble/test

composer init