Update: For Xdebug 3+: As of Xdebug 3, it is possible to disable the Xdebug completely by setting the option xdebug.mode to off, or by setting the environment variable XDEBUGMODE=off. It is very easy to disable Xdebug just for composer, by aliasing composer. Alias composer='XDEBUGMODE=off composer' OR.
In an earlier post I demonstrated how to install PHP5.4 using brew. Today, I required xdebug for debugging purposes and found it quite easy to install via homebrew.


Install XDebug for PHP
It’s as simple as issuing the command:
- Homebrew have relocated “php” formulas and renamed “php71” into “php@7.1” in 2018 making it quite difficult to and also removing extensions (such as xdebug) from brew.
- Now, I like xdebug for development. But, this step is optional. To install xdebug for each version of php (cli and fpm) run the following. Brew link -overwrite -force php@7.2 pecl uninstall -r xdebug pecl install xdebug brew link -overwrite -force php@7.3 pecl uninstall -r xdebug pecl install xdebug.
- Aug 01, 2017 Xdebug allows you to break during code execution and inspect all the variables in scope during a request. This means you have all you need to troubleshoot during only one iteration of this cycle. This can save a huge amount of time when tracking down issues, and helps make your development workflow more efficient.
2 | //or |
To enable remote debugging, I also added these lines: