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By Team Lando
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Team Lando

Using Lando with VSCode ​

Visual Studio Code is a great open source editor for programming. Debugging PHP applications with it can be easy too.

This is a basic setup to help you in this task.

For a complete explaination of the Xdebug features and configuration options available to you in Lando see the Using Xdebug section of Lando's PHP plugin documentation.

Getting Started ​

Enable Xdebug by adding the xdebug: true line to your .lando.yml.

When using a recipe, add it under the config key:

yaml
name: mywebsite
recipe: drupal10
config:
  xdebug: true

Otherwise, override your php service, usually named appserver:

yaml
name: mywebsite
services:
  appserver:
    webroot: web
    xdebug: true

Rebuild your environment.

bash
lando rebuild -y

Finally, create a custom launch.json file in your workspace in order to map paths so that XDebug works correctly.

bash
touch .vscode/launch.json
code .vscode/launch.json
json
{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Listen for XDebug",
      "type": "php",
      "request": "launch",
      "port": 9003,
      "pathMappings": {
        "/app/": "${workspaceFolder}/",
      }
    }
  ]
}

Note: PHP 7.1 and earlier uses xdebug 2 which uses port 9000, so change the port number above accordingly.

Done!

You can now click start debugging (type F5 or click on the icon in the left sidebar).

Advanced Setup ​

Optionally for better performance you can easily toggle Xdebug on and off with some custom tooling commands.

If you're using Apache, add this to your .lando.yml:

yaml
config:
  # Set Xdebug off by default. We use the tooling below to turn it on as needed.
  xdebug: false

services:
  appserver:
    overrides:
      environment:
        XDEBUG_MODE: 'debug,develop'

tooling:
  xdebug-on:
    service: appserver
    description: Enable Xdebug.
    user: root
    cmd:
      - docker-php-ext-enable xdebug && kill -USR2 $(pgrep -o php-fpm) > /dev/null || /etc/init.d/apache2 reload
      - tput setaf 2 && echo "Xdebug On" && tput sgr 0 && echo

  xdebug-off:
    service: appserver
    description: Disable Xdebug.
    user: root
    cmd:
      - rm /usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/docker-php-ext-xdebug.ini && kill -USR2 $(pgrep -o php-fpm) > /dev/null || /etc/init.d/apache2 reload
      - tput setaf 1 && echo "Xdebug Off" && tput sgr 0 && echo

Now you can turn Xdebug on or off with lando xdebug-on and lando xdebug-off.

Debugging PhpUnit ​

Debugging PhpUnit tests in VSCode requires a little more setup, but Lando helps to make it easier.

First, you need to have VSCode listen for debugging on 2 separate ports, because PhpUnit runs in one process and the tests themselves in another, and VSCode's Xdebug extension currently struggles with this. You accomplish this by have a launch.json that looks like this:

json
{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Listen for XDebug",
      "type": "php",
      "request": "launch",
      "port": 9003,
      "log": true,
      "pathMappings": {
        "/app/": "${workspaceFolder}/",
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "PhpUnit dummy",
      "type": "php",
      "request": "launch",
      "port": 9001,
    }
  ],
  "compounds": [
    {
        "name": "PhpUnit",
        "configurations": ["Listen for XDebug", "PhpUnit dummy"]
    }
       ]
}

Next add some custom tooling to your .lando.yml file, that provides a command to run PhpUnit in a way points the main PhpUnit process to the PhpUnit dummy debugger we just added. (The syntax here assumes a project-specific installation of PhpUnit, not a global one).

yml
tooling:
  phpunitdebug:
    service: appserver
    cmd: php -d xdebug.remote_port=9003 vendor/bin/phpunit

Note: PHP 7.1 and earlier uses xdebug 2 which uses port 9000, so change the port number above accordinly.

Now to run debug a PhpUnit test, do the following:

  1. Select the compound "PhpUnit" as your debugger in VSCode's UI, and start it.
  2. Make sure you untick "Everything" in the breakpoints section of the UI, or it will break every time PhpUnit throws an exception, even if it's properly caught by PhpUnit.
  3. Add a breakpoint in your code that is being tested.
  4. On your command line run PhpUnit with something like lando phpunitdebug --filter=testMyTestMethodName (this example is of running a single test method, actually you can add any phpunit options you like at the end).

Known issues ​

Xdebug session doesn't start

If Xdebug session doesn't start, dig into the log file inside the application.

Enter the app with lando ssh and open the debug file (/tmp/xdebug.log).

Path to the debug file is configured in your custom php.ini.

Now open your app in a browser and see what's being logged.

bash
lando ssh
tail -f /tmp/xdebug.log
# Open your browser and refresh the app

Xdebug says "timeout trying to connect to XX.XX.XX:9003

Double-check your host machine allow connection on its port 9003.

This is how you can open a specific port on a Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -d 0/0 -s 0/0 --dport 9003 -j ACCEPT

Read More ​