If this setting is 1, Xdebug will color var_dumps and stack traces output when in CLI mode and when the output is a tty. On Windows, the ANSICON tool needs to be installed.

If the setting is 2, then Xdebug will always color var_dumps and stack trace, no matter whether it's connected to a tty or whether ANSICON is installed. In this case, you might end up seeing escape codes.

See this article for some more information.

This setting, defaulting to 0, controls whether Xdebug should collect the parameters passed to functions when a function call is recorded in either the function trace or the stack trace.

The setting defaults to 0 because for very large scripts it may use huge amounts of memory and therefore make it impossible for the huge script to run. You can most safely turn this setting on, but you can expect some problems in scripts with a lot of function calls and/or huge data structures as parameters. Xdebug 2 will not have this problem with increased memory usage, as it will never store this information in memory. Instead it will only be written to disk. This means that you need to have a look at the disk usage though.

This setting can have four different values. For each of the values a different amount of information is shown. Below you will see what information each of the values provides. See also the introduction of the feature Stack Traces for a few screenshots.

¹ in the CLI version of PHP it will not have the tool tip, nor in output files.

* can be any of COOKIE, FILES, GET, POST, REQUEST, SERVER, SESSION. These seven settings control which data from the superglobals is shown when an error situation occurs.

Each of those php.ini setting can consist of a comma seperated list of variables from this superglobal to dump, or * for all of them. Make sure you do not add spaces in this setting.

In order to dump the REMOTE_ADDR and the REQUEST_METHOD when an error occurs, and all GET parameters, add these settings:

xdebug.dump.SERVER = REMOTE_ADDR,REQUEST_METHOD
xdebug.dump.GET = *

This setting determines the format of the links that are made in the display of stack traces where file names are used. This allows IDEs to set up a link-protocol that makes it possible to go directly to a line and file by clicking on the filenames that Xdebug shows in stack traces. An example format might look like:

myide://%f@%l

The possible format specifiers are:

For various IDEs/OSses there are some instructions listed on how to make this work:

Firefox on Linux

• Open about:config
• Add a new boolean setting "network.protocol-handler.expose.xdebug"
• Add the following into a shell script ~/bin/ff-xdebug.sh:

  #! /bin/sh
  
  f=`echo $1 | cut -d @ -f 1 | sed 's/xdebug:\/\///'`
  l=`echo $1 | cut -d @ -f 2`
  

  Add to that one of (depending whether you have komodo or gvim):
  • komodo $f -l $l
  • gvim --remote-tab +$l $f
• Make the script executable with chmod +x ~/bin/ff-xdebug.sh
• Set the xdebug.file_link_format setting to xdebug://%f@%l

Windows and netbeans

• Create the file netbeans.bat and save it in your path (C:\Windows will work):

  @echo off 
  setlocal enableextensions enabledelayedexpansion 
  set NETBEANS=%1
  set FILE=%~2
  %NETBEANS% --nosplash --console suppress --open "%FILE:~19%"
  nircmd win activate process netbeans.exe
  

  Note: Remove the last line if you don't have nircmd.

• Save the following code as netbeans_protocol.reg:

  Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
  
  [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\netbeans]
  "URL Protocol"=""
  @="URL:Netbeans Protocol"
  
  [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\netbeans\DefaultIcon]
  @="\"C:\\Program Files\\NetBeans 7.1.1\\bin\\netbeans.exe,1\""
  
  [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\netbeans\shell]
  
  [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\netbeans\shell\open]
  
  [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\netbeans\shell\open\command]
  @="\"C:\\Windows\\netbeans.bat\" \"C:\\Program Files\\NetBeans 7.1.1\\bin\\netbeans.exe\" \"%1\""
  

  Note: Make sure to change the path to Netbeans (twice), as well as the netbeans.bat batch file if you saved it somewhere else than C:\Windows\.

• Double click on the netbeans_protocol.reg file to import it into the registry.
• Set the xdebug.file_link_format setting to xdebug.file_link_format = "netbeans://open/?f=%f:%l"

This setting determines the name of the file that is used to dump traces into. The setting specifies the format with format specifiers, very similar to sprintf() and strftime(). There are several format specifiers that can be used to format the file name.

See the xdebug.trace_output_name documentation for the supported specifiers.

Can be either 'php3' which selects the old PHP 3 style debugger output, 'gdb' which enables the GDB like debugger interface or 'dbgp' - the debugger protocol. The DBGp protocol is the only supported protocol.

Note: Xdebug 2.1 and later only support 'dbgp' as protocol.

Log opened at 2007-05-27 14:28:15
-> <init xmlns="urn:debugger_protocol_v1" xmlns:xdebug="http://xdebug.org/dbgp/x ... ight></init>

<- step_into -i 1
-> <response xmlns="urn:debugger_protocol_v1" xmlns:xdebug="http://xdebug.org/db ... ></response>

Selects when a debug connection is initiated. This setting can have two different values:

req

Xdebug will try to connect to the debug client as soon as the script starts.

jit

Xdebug will only try to connect to the debug client as soon as an error condition occurs.

The format of the trace file.

Fields for the computerized format:

See the introduction of Function Traces for a few examples.

This setting determines the name of the file that is used to dump traces into. The setting specifies the format with format specifiers, very similar to sprintf() and strftime(). There are several format specifiers that can be used to format the file name. The '.xt' extension is always added automatically.

The possible format specifiers are:

² This one is not available for trace file names.

³ New in version 2.2. This one is set by Apache's mod_unique_id module

Controls the amount of array children and object's properties are shown when variables are displayed with either xdebug_var_dump(), xdebug.show_local_vars or through Function Traces.

To disable any limitation, use -1 as value.

This setting does not have any influence on the number of children that is send to the client through the Remote Debugging feature.

Controls the maximum string length that is shown when variables are displayed with either xdebug_var_dump(), xdebug.show_local_vars or through Function Traces.

To disable any limitation, use -1 as value.

This setting does not have any influence on the number of children that is send to the client through the Remote Debugging feature.

Controls how many nested levels of array elements and object properties are when variables are displayed with either xdebug_var_dump(), xdebug.show_local_vars or through Function Traces.

The maximum value you can select is 1023. You can also use -1 as value to select this maximum number.

This setting does not have any influence on the number of children that is send to the client through the Remote Debugging feature.