This tutorial will enable you to setup a PHP Development Environment using Netbeans IDE 6.5 PHP pack (Early Access for PHP) under Windows XP. First, we need to download the tools that we need. Next, we need to have a server configured to run with PhP and database support. The easiest way would be to use a pre-configured package that uses Apache as a server, MySQL and PHP, one reliable distribution that I’m frequently using is the XAMPP packaged which can be dowloaded here. We also need the JAVA Developer KIT (JDK) freely available from Sun Microsystems, and the Netbeans Early Access for PHP. For debugging purposes we need to have the Xdebug extensions for PHP download the client and the modules that corresponds with your PHP version.

To configure our environment run the XAMPP setup, select an arbitrary directory which is more convenient for you, mine is configured to run under F:\Development\xampp\, after installing XAMPP check if it’s running start the XAMPP Control panel and check the services status Apache and MySQL should have a running Status. If not troubleshoot your setup usually you have a conflicting services that uses port:80, i.e IIS server if it happens either stop IIS or change the port used by Apache under your Apache\conf\httpd.conf look for the entry ServerName localhost:80 change the port number for it to work then start Apache. If everything else is alright the server is accessible by typing http://localhost or [http://localhost:portnumber] in your browser. Proceed configuring Apache Security this is self explanatory.

Next is install the JAVA JDK followed by Early Access for PHP, JDK is needed by Early Access for PHP Netbeans to run so it should be installed first. If everything else is installed we need to proceed configuring our development environment. My server is running PHP 5.2.5, so i downloaded the php_xdebug-2.0.3-5.2.5.dll for my Xdebug module. I put it under my F:\Development\xampp\php\ directory and configure my php.ini with the following settings: [XDebug]
;; Only Zend OR (!) XDebug
zend_extension_ts="F:\Development\xampp\php\php_xdebug-2.0.3-5.2.5.dll"
xdebug.remote_enable=true
xdebug.remote_host=127.0.0.1
xdebug.remote_port=9001
xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp
xdebug.profiler_enable=1
xdebug.profiler_output_dir="F:\Development\xampp\tmp"

You need to ocate (put an ; to disable) the Zend Extensions because it conflicts with the Xdebug module:
[Zend]
;zend_extension_ts = "F:\Development\xampp\php\zendOptimizer\lib\ZendExtensionManager.dll"
;zend_extension_manager.optimizer_ts = "F:\Development\xampp\php\zendOptimizer\lib\Optimizer"
;zend_optimizer.enable_loader = 0
;zend_optimizer.optimization_level=15
;zend_optimizer.license_path =
; Local Variables:
; tab-width: 4
; End:
My IDE environment Early Access for PHP is configured to use the port: 9001 since some applications are running and conflicting with the default installation port:9000 you can do this by clicking on the IDE menu Tools>Options>Miscellaneous Select debugger port and put your port number:

Our development environment is ready for our PHP project, to try it out let us try test it by using Wordpress as our project source. Put your Wordpress project under the htdocs folder in our xampp directory for it to be accessible in our browser. My IE environment is configured with the following settings:

If evrything else is configured run main project or press F6 install the wordpress environment it will be run in your browser. If you want to check debug run Debug main project CTRL+F5, if your debugging environment is running you will see something like:http://localhost/main/index.php?XDEBUG_SESSION_START=netbeans-xdebug in your browser address bar. If you run in problem check that your xdebug module is running go to your PHP directory and type PHP -m, you will see two entries for xdebug unde [PHP Modules] and [Zend Modules].

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