Is it possible to Debug with Phalcon PHP? - php

Question

Is it possible to debug Phalcon PHP?
I'm using Sublime 3 editor but am willing to use any editor if debugging is possible.
I found a similar question on Stack Overflow but the only answer was a sales pitch about how great Phalcon is.
Updated: I'm updating this question after the fact. I learned that debugging a Phalcon application is no different than debugging a PHP application except that you cannot debug the actual Phalcon code. I didn't think it was possible to debug at all so my question might have been misleading to other developers that were new to both PHP and Phalcon at the same time.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, since Phalcon is a compiled PHP extension, it's not possible to debug it using a PHP debugger. What we usually do to understand Phalcon internals is having a look at the Zephir source code.
Edit: since my original answer above could be misunderstood. I figured the question's goal was to debug Phalcons internal functions, which is only possible with a C debugger (as described in Luke's answer). Of course it is still possible to debug your own PHP code, but you may not step into Phalcon classes/methods.

Answer 2

I'm assuming that you want to debug your PHP code, not Phalcon extension. If you mean debugging Phalcon framework itself you should install Zephir for code modifying and use gdb to run php command (at least on linux, not sure what about other systems).
Standard var_dump(), echo, printf and die
It works well with all the phalcon objects, just print out variables you want to debug using var_dump() (or other output functions) and use die() before execution your view code. If view part of application get executed will most likely replace your debug printings.
Alternatively you can also pass your variables to view part of your application and just simply use <?php var_dump($variable)?> or if you're using volt just {{dump(variable)}}.
Using XDebug Remote
This is the way I personally like the most. Yes, XDebug Remote works great with Phalcon. Personally I use NetBeans but you can use other IDE's as well. There are many tutorials for configuring all the popular IDEs so I'm not going to write it again. Note that Phalcon team suggests to use XDebug 2.2.3 or greater for better compatibility.
how to configure XDebug on PHP Storm
how to configure XDebug on NetBeans
how to configure XDebug on Sublime 3
You can read more about debuging Phalcon in Phalcon's Documentation

Answer 3

The best way to debug Phalcon based application is to include below code snippet into the bootstrap section of your application AND once you get any error (application level) then you'll get very useful information like below.
Backtrace
Request
Server
Includes Files
Memory (this is very useful)
(new Phalcon\Debug)->listen();