Settings up xdebug on MAMP PRO

Since release of MAMP 2.01 XDebug is already included.

Solved. Here's the tutorial that helped me:

1. Start MAMP

2. Edit php.ini template file through MAMP to enable the extension. Edit the template file via File -> Edit Template -> PHP -> PHP php.ini

   

3. Edit bottom of php.ini template file so that it ends up looking like if you want profile output

   [xdebug]
   zend_extension="/Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php5.3.6/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20090626/xdebug.so"
   xdebug.profiler_enable = 1
   xdebug.profiler_output_dir = "/tmp"
   ; DONT REMOVE: MAMP PRO php5.3.6.ini template compatibility version: 1
   

   If you don’t want profile output and just want xdebug running then use

   [xdebug]
   zend_extension="/Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php5.3.6/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20090626/xdebug.so"
   xdebug.profiler_enable = 0
   xdebug.profiler_output_dir = "/tmp"
   ; DONT REMOVE: MAMP PRO php5.3.6.ini template compatibility version: 1
   

   Now when you have errors, if they are sent to standard out, you will see something like this

   

   My php.ini file:

   

4. Save edited template and close edit window

5. Restart MAMP

6. Open MAMP’s WebStart page and navigate to PHPInfo tab. Check to make sure that Xdebug is running. Doing a search in the browser window for “Xdebug” makes this easy.

   

7. If you used the same settings that I have above, when you run PHP code, Xdebug will put the cachegrind.out files in your ‘/tmp’ directory. Open your ‘/temp’ directory and run one of your PHP files to make sure it is working correctly. You can open the ‘/tmp’ directory in finder by opening the terminal and running

   open /tmp
   

   

8. Now you can use any app that understands those cachegrind.out files to view the profile data. Apps like KCacheGrind (Linux/Windows, KDE), WinCacheGrind (Windows), xdebugtoolkit, and Webgrind.  I went the simple route and used webgrind. Webgrind is a simple web based application that you can run locally on MAMP and it will look for the cachegrind.out files automatically with just one click. Continue for steps on setting up with webgrind.

9. Download Webgrind

10. Setup Webgrind host on MAMP to run Webgrind

    

11. Visit webgrind url setup on your local MAMP installation. Mine was simply webgrind/

    

12. If you already have cachegrind output files you should be able to select the file in the “Auto (newest)” dropdown or leave it select at Auto and click update which will reveal the profile data

    

13. Throw a celebratory fist pump

    

I had trouble with setting up MAMP Pro and nginx myself and the above answer did not work for me.

The problem was that the default port setting is 9000, which in my case I have that port already in use so I looked in my nginx conf at this line:

location ~ \.php$ {
            try_files        $uri =404;
            fastcgi_pass     unix:/Applications/MAMP/Library/logs/fastcgi/nginxFastCGI.sock;
            fastcgi_param    SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
            include          fastcgi_params;
        }

then go to the file located when fastcgi_pass is set to, and in there you will find the correct port number. In my case it was in Applications/MAMP/Library/logs/fastcgi and the filename is dependent on your host's php version.

Then open that file, and set whatever PID is in there to xdebug.remote_port in php.ini, for me it was 13267.

It may be worthwhile to mention my MAMP config for PHP is set to CGI mode, not modules.

EDIT:

I just realized that the port number dynamically changes way too much. So I set a hardcoded value for fastcgi pass in my nginx template for MAMP like so:

fastcgi_pass      127.0.0.1:9072;
# comment out the regular setting just in case.
# fastcgi_pass     unix:/Applications/MAMP/Library/logs/fastcgi/nginxFastCGI.sock;