Profiling with Xdebug
tip
Before profiling with Xdebug, download, install and configure the components of the PHP development environment. Normally, these are a PHP engine, a web server, and the Xdebug tool.
Open the active php.ini file in the editor:
In the Settings dialog (CtrlAlt0S), click PHP.
On the PHP page that opens, click
next to the CLI Interpreter field.In the CLI Interpreters dialog that opens, the Configuration file read-only field shows the path to the active php.ini file. Click Open in Editor.
Enable the Xdebug profiler mode by one of the following ways:
To permanently enable the profiler, set the
xdebug.mode(for Xdebug 3) orxdebug.profiler_enable(for Xdebug 2) setting toprofile:Xdebug 3Xdebug 2xdebug.mode = profileTo enable triggering the profiler from the browser by using the XDEBUG_PROFILE cookie or a GET/POST parameter, set the following settings depending on the Xdebug version used:
Xdebug 3Xdebug 2xdebug.mode = profile xdebug.start_with_request = trigger
Specify the location for storing profiling snapshots:
Add the
xdebug.output_dir(Xdebug 3) orxdebug.profiler_output_dir(Xdebug 2) setting and specify the path to the directory as its value.Xdebug 3Xdebug 2xdebug.output_dir = <path to output folder>Add the
xdebug.profiler_output_namesetting and specify the name of the file to store snapshots in as its value.The default value is
cachegrind.out.%p, where%pis the name format specifier. Use the default value or define a custom file format according to the supported format specifiers. Note that the name should always be cachegrind.out.xdebug.profiler_output_name = cachegrind.out.%p
Do one of the following:
To start debugging an entire application, create debug configuration of the type PHP Web Page, and launch debugging by clicking
.For more information, refer to Debug with a PHP web page debug configuration.
To debug a specific PHP HTTP request, define a debug configuration of the type PHP HTTP Request, and launch debugging by clicking
.For more information, refer to Debug a PHP HTTP request.
To initiate a zero-configuration debugging session:
Toggle the Start Listen PHP Debug Connections button
(
in the classic UI) on the PhpStorm toolbar or status bar so that it changes to 
. After that PhpStorm starts listening to the port of the debugging engine used in the current project. Debugging ports are set at the PhpStorm level on the PHP | Debug page of the Settings dialog (CtrlAlt0S). Open the starting page of your application in the browser, choose the Start debugger bookmark to activate the debugging engine from the browser, re-load the current page (the starting page of the application), and then return to PhpStorm.
Set up Xdebug in PhpStorm.
Create a custom run configuration for the PHP script file and specify the following Interpreter options in it:
-dxdebug.mode=profile -dxdebug.start_with_request=yes -dxdebug.output_dir=/Users/{username}/{path-to-project-directory} -dxdebug.profiler_output_name=cachegrind.out.%p
Launch the created run configuration by clicking Run from the Run/Debug Configurations dialog or using your preferred way of running application configurations.
Every time you launch such run configuration, PhpStorm generates a
cachegrind.out.%pprofiler snapshot and stores it in the specified output folder.
Go to .
In the Select Xdebug profiler snapshot dialog that opens, choose the folder and the file where the profiling data is stored.
PhpStorm presents the collected profiling data in a separate editor tab with the name of the selected profiler output file.
You can select and open several snapshots at a time. In this case, PhpStorm aggregates the profiling data from all the selected snapshots and presents the averaged result in a single tab.
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