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Getting Started with Eclipse PHP Development Tools (PDT)

posted August 22nd, 2007 at 9:17 pm by chad

Eclipse Splash ScreenAre you ready to take a step beyond writing code in a text editor like UltraEdit, BBEdit, or TextMate? Would you like to see those PHP and JavaScript syntax errors in the editor, without transferring files to the server or opening a browser? If so, then you're ready to jump into the world of the IDE — Integrated Development Environment. I'll compare the free, open source Eclipse IDE to a few of its commercial competitors Then we'll go through the steps to install Eclipse PDT All-In-One, the Zend Debugger, JSEclipse, and Subclipse.

Why an IDE? Let there be no mistake, I still love BBEdit and TextMate. I use both daily at work and at home for quick edits and I actually wrote this post in TextMate. But if you spend a good portion of your day writing PHP, an IDE will save you time in small increments by highlighting those unbalanced braces and missing semicolons, displaying PHP function arguments, and allowing you to debug your code right in the editor.

There are commercial IDEs available and I've use a few of them. I tried an early version of Eclipse with the xored studio but the combo wasn't feature-rich and didn't perform as well as Zend Studio. I later switched from Zend to Active State's Komodo. I've been happy Komodo but it's sluggish performance on my PPC Mac drove me back to giving Eclipse another try.

I started using Eclipse with PDT at work about a year and am amazed at how much PDT, formerly PHP IDE, has improved over the past four years. Eclipse is first a Java development environment, but extensions exist for a bunch of other languages, including Perl, Ruby, and Tcl. Okay, enough with the commentary, let's get to it, shall we?

Download and install Eclipse PDT All-In-One

Installation couldn't be easier. Visit the Eclipse PDT download page, select a stable build link, scroll down to the PDT All-in-One section, and select the download for your platform.

http://download.eclipse.org/tools/pdt/downloads/

Once the download is complete, unpack and move the 'eclipse' folder to your Applications or Program Files folder. Fire up Eclipse, create a new PHP file or project, and code away.

Install the Zend Debugger

Out of the box, Eclipse provides PHP syntax highlighting, code completion, PHP documentation, phpDoc support, and more. Local and server debugging, however, require the installation of XDebug or Zend Debugger extension. Here's how to enable local debugging with the Zend Debugger.

  1. Select Help->Software Updates->Find and Install
  2. Select Search for new features to install, click Next
  3. Click the New Remote Site button...
    1. Name: Zend Debugger
    2. URL: http://downloads.zend.com/pdt
  4. Zend Debugger now appears checked in the Sites to include in search list, click Finish
  5. The update manager searches for the files to download
  6. All Zend Debugger options should be checked on the Search Results screen, click Next
  7. Agree to the licensing terms, click Next
  8. Select the Zend Debugger in the Features to Install screen, you can change the install location, but the default is recommended, click Finish
  9. Verify the Zend Debugger on the Feature Verification screen, click Install All
  10. After installation you'll be asked to restart Eclipse for the changes to take affect

You should now have a PHP Debug Perspective, complete with variable tracing, breakpoints, and CLI and browser debug output views.

Install JSEclipse

To add improved JavaScript editing abilities to Eclipse, install JSEclipse from Adobe Labs. JSEclipse also provides editing support for popular JavaScript libraries, including YUI, Dojo, Prototype, and more. To install JSEclipse with the Update Manager

  1. Select Help->Software Updates->Find and Install
  2. Select Search for new features to install, click Next
  3. Click the New Remote Site button...
  4. JSEclipse now appears checked in the Sites to include in search list, click Finish
  5. The update manager searches for the files to download
  6. Check the JSEclipse version check box on the Search Results screen, click Next
  7. Agree to the licensing terms, click Next
  8. Select JSEclipse in the Features to Install screen, you can change the install location, but the default is recommended, click Finish
  9. Verify JSEclipse on the Feature Verification screen, click Install All
  10. After installation you'll be asked to restart Eclipse for the changes to take affect

To create a new JS file, select New->File->Other->Web->JavaScript. You should now have code completion and error highlighting for JavaScript files.

Install Subclipse

To add support for Subversion revision management you'll need to install Subclipse from tigris.org, the developers of Subversion. To install, let's use the Update Manager again.

  1. Select Help->Software Updates->Find and Install
  2. Select Search for new features to install, click Next
  3. Click the New Remote Site button...
  4. Subclipse now appears checked in the Sites to include in search list, click Finish
  5. The update manager searches for the files to download
  6. Check the Subclipse version check box on the Search Results screen. You may need to install dependent extensions for the Subclipse integrations (I didn't select integrations), click Next
  7. Agree to the licensing terms, click Next
  8. Select Subclipse in the Features to Install screen, you can change the install location, but the default is recommended, click Finish
  9. Verify Subclipse on the Feature Verification screen, click Install All
  10. After installation you'll be asked to restart Eclipse for the changes to take affect

To checkout an existing Subversion repository

  1. Select New->File->Other->SVN->Checkout Projects from SVN, click Next
  2. Create a New Repository, click Next
  3. Enter the URL for the SVN repository you want to checkout, click Next
  4. If the repository URL is secure, accept the SSL certificate
  5. Select the folder(s) to checkout
  6. Create a new Project, select the Project type, PHP Project in this case, click Next
  7. Enter a Project name, workspace, and any other project specific settings, click Finish
  8. You'll see an overwrite warning that any SVN repository files with the same names as Eclipse settings files, normally you shouldn't need to worry about this, click OK
  9. The project is checked out of the repository

I've just started to use some of the data integration and design extensions available for Eclipse and will post a followup soon. In the meantime, happy coding!

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Comments

hi

June 20th, 2008 at 5:44 pm — Anonymous (not verified)

Thanks for this detailed articles on installing all these plugins. Being wanting answers for a long time now.Am so glad i stumbled on your website. Great work!!

Detailed step-by-step guide for setting up PDT+XDebug

June 11th, 2008 at 10:08 pm — Rob (not verified)

Here's a detailed step-by-step article for setting up a PHP debugger using PDT+XDebug and XAMPP:

http://robsnotebook.com/php_debugger_pdt_xdebug

Thanks for sharing Rob.

June 12th, 2008 at 8:26 pm — chad

Thanks for sharing Rob.

I couldn't get the debugger

May 20th, 2008 at 6:19 am — ajclifford (not verified)

I couldn't get the debugger going in 1.0.3. I did some reading and found a number of things have changed in this version but couldn't find sufficient documentation to follow on. I will try again later when hopefully all the changes are well documented. Thanks for the article.

Publishing to the server

May 13th, 2008 at 6:30 am — PHPn00b

Unless I've missed something, I can't find a way to publish my files to my Apache server.

Does Zend do this for you? Based on the Help in Eclipse, it does not. And for me, as a newbie to PHP, it's really helpful to have the files publish right from my project in Eclipse.

Is there any word on if this is coming? Right now I'm keeping my files in a static web project, so they'll automatically publish to my server when I save them. And then I'll just copy them back when I need to use the debugger.

I have the same question. I

May 14th, 2008 at 3:06 pm — bm (not verified)

I have the same question. I cant get my PDT configured to have the files published to the Apache Web server directly. How did you use static web project to do this? Can you elaborate? thanks

Two methods to publish, probably others

May 15th, 2008 at 11:20 am — chad

@PHPn00b and @btm, I'm aware of two methods to publish project files. I use Subversion to manage revisions and to checkout updates on my production server and am very happy with the flexibility and power using version control provides.

@ragaskar commented on the RSE Eclipse plugin which might open up the possibility of publishing files from the command line via scp or ftp.

There may be other file publishing plugins that provide what you're looking for.

Whenever I open a file in

March 10th, 2008 at 11:55 pm — Palakh (not verified)

Whenever I open a file in php, it always opens in other editor(dreamweaver 8.0). The same thing happens when moving between php file tabs already in the workbench. So I m forced to work in dreamweaver editor.

Kindly provide the solution.

Change File Association on Windows

April 4th, 2008 at 1:37 pm — Simon Lee (not verified)

Open My Computer, and on the menu bar choose Tools -> Folder Options and take a look at the File Types tab. Scroll down on the registered file types and find and edit the .php extensions. Hope this helps.

Change editor file associations

March 11th, 2008 at 2:20 pm — chad

You can change the editor associated with files that have a .php file extension. I don't recall how to do it on Windows, but on the Mac, select a PHP file, select Get Info, change the Open With value, and click the 'Change All...' button.

Debugger

January 24th, 2008 at 3:46 am — Jon (not verified)

I installed the all in one package for Windows and I can set breakpoints etc and there seems to be some mention in the settings that its using the zend debugger however I cannot get it to stop on the breakpoint. Do i still need to install the Zend debugger? I have seen contrasting documentation to say the all in one does containt the debugger and documentation that it doesn't.

Tutorial Eclipse PDT using Zend Debugger

February 13th, 2008 at 5:20 am — Mike Lubbers (not verified)

Hello,

I've also been struggling with getting the Zend Debugger to work inside eclipse PDT but finally it works! I made a tutorial of 7 page's describing the installation/use of the Zend Debugger on a local Wamp 1.7.4 PHP server.

You can download the tutorial together with a eclipse PHP project 'debugtester' from http://www.kinetiek.com/files/download/debugtester.zip.

regards, Mike

Thanks Mike

June 4th, 2008 at 2:36 pm — Amir (not verified)

Really useful tutorial :)

Yes, I believe so

January 25th, 2008 at 4:44 pm — chad

Despite what you've seen to the contrary, I'd go ahead and install the debugger. If that doesn't work, perhaps you could try Xdebug.

why jsEclipse and not Aptana?

January 19th, 2008 at 8:36 am — santiago (not verified)

Thats the question, why using jsEclipse and not the Aptana plug-in for Eclipse?, I think is much complete

I hadn't tried Aptana. The

January 20th, 2008 at 10:25 am — chad

I hadn't tried Aptana. The fact that JSEclipse is developed by Adobe was appealing and JSEclipse seemed to have more Google-juice when I did my initial search for a JavaScript eclipse plugin. Can you share some of Aptana's features?

What's the difference in between phpeclipse ana pdt project?

January 11th, 2008 at 7:27 am — Anonymous (not verified)

Hi php gurus,
Since, I am new...to start my step with "which IDE on php?" is the big question?

What's the difference in between phpeclipse ana pdt project?

Which is one the latest and robust one and would recomended, like my java IDE - eclipse?

Please, help me to choose the best IDE for PHP base projects development?

Thanks in advance.

~S

I haven't used phpeclipse,

January 20th, 2008 at 10:22 am — chad

I haven't used phpeclipse, but I've talked with a friend about it. This friend tells me that phpeclipse provides more features than PDT. What he's noticed, however, is that PDT appears to be a more active project and more highly supported project. This article may help you in your decision making process: http://divby0.blogspot.com/2007/07/phpeclipse-vs-pdt.html

PDT on Ubuntu

December 23rd, 2007 at 8:38 pm — Chuck Burgess (not verified)

I wanted to pass along the only way I found to get PDT installed and working on Ubuntu Gutsy...

I had no luck with the Eclipse from the Ubuntu repositories, and certainly no luck with anything related to GCJ. I've spent two days now on it.

What I did that finally appears to be working:
- remove all GCJ and Java stuff
- install Sun's 1.5 JDK
- download the J2EE Europa version
* ( at this point, Eclipse works) *
- add PDT as a new Remote Site to Eclipse's updater, and force it to download the files only from the PDT site itself (due to some bug with mirrors -- see http://dev.eclipse.org/blogs/wayne/2007/09/18/php-for-nothing/)

I then had PDT installed and working, and could then follow the instructions from this blog post for adding Subclipse and JSEclipse. I didn't bother with Zend Debugger, because I think PDT should be able to use xdebug ok.

Thanks

January 6th, 2008 at 2:26 am — chad

Thanks for sharing.

Thank you!!

November 13th, 2007 at 6:18 am — Ivan (not verified)

Thank you!!
Your article in beautiful.

Code completion

October 24th, 2007 at 6:34 am — Pierre Norraeus (not verified)

Is the code completion functionality supposed to cover project-specific included classes as well? The PHPEclipse plugin seems to have a larger, more updated library for code completion then the PDT. Any thoughts on this?

Code completion relies on PHPdoc comments

November 1st, 2007 at 9:24 pm — chad

AFAIK, if the class isn't documented PHPdoc-style, there's no code completion.

Code Completion relies on PHPdoc comments

February 14th, 2008 at 9:06 am — Anonymous (not verified)

I checked the .profile file, so I'm sure my project has got the PHP-perspective.
So I opened one of the files with a class and added a comment @method to the constructor, and @package just above the class declaration.
But I still get no code completion. Did I miss something?

By the way, thanks for a lot of good hints on this blog!

Did you also comment your class' member functions?

February 14th, 2008 at 1:19 pm — chad

You need to comment function parameters and return values to full enable code completion. You should also comment class variables.

/**
 * Method description
 * @param datatype $arg1 Arg1 description
 * @param datatype $arg2 Arg2 description
 * @return datatype Return value description
 */
function myfunction($arg1, $arg2) {
  ...
}

Where is the PHP perspective? How to add PHP projects?

October 18th, 2007 at 9:34 am — Mike L (not verified)

I have the same problem. No PHP Project under New. No php perspective is visible under Perspectives.
1) Cleaning doesn't help (i.e. starting with "eclipse -clean") so it's not a chaching problem.
2) Re-installing doesn't help.
3) installing eclipse Europa and adding PDT only doesn't help.

Does anybody have a clue?

Best wishes, Mike

Where is PHP perspective?

October 20th, 2007 at 10:55 pm — Anonymous (not verified)

I installed everything to integrate php into eclipse and noticed that the php didn't appear directly in the new list. But did you happen to go File -> new -> other -> PHP

A new JRE worked for me

October 18th, 2007 at 10:04 am — Mike L (not verified)

Just installed a new Java Runtime Environment. Now I see PHP perspectives in Eclipse and I can create a new PHP project.

JRE Version: 1.6.0_03-b05.

Maybe this might help for you too.

Good luck, Mike

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you

December 9th, 2007 at 9:01 am — deals311 (not verified)

Installing latest JRE worked for me also. Nothing more frustrating then installing something new and having the simplest task not work.

java5 required

October 29th, 2007 at 1:20 pm — Andrej (not verified)

1.5.0_12-b04 works too
1.4.2_14-b05 doesn't work

after first start there was LOOOONG time to start eclipse but after that it's working nice and smooth even with php debugger.

thanks a lot for good plugin tip

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